Saturday, July 12, 2008

things it's time i said


Goodbye Danny, originally uploaded by sMacshot.



___things i want to say out-loud, A LIST:
____-
fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.... [sigh]

___things i don't know how i'm going to manage, A LIST:
____- this week
____- the next six months
____- the next 3 years
____- the rest of my life
____- people's chatter
____- going back. being back. having to stay back
____- all the noise
____- sitting in cars with people asking me questions and me not being able to walk away

___places i'd rather be right now, A LIST:
____-
____-
____-___(what difference does it ever make?)

___things i know for certain, A LIST:
____-
____-
____-
_______(and gravity

___people i'm going to miss not having near, A LIST:
____-
____-
____-
_______(and surprisingly, since i rarely see them - jamjam and susie.


*__*__*

when i was 16, i first had a vision, an acute dream of myself, as a middle-aged man, having ruined his life, slouching into the corner of a large house he was alone in, staring idly away with reddish eyes, and bopping slowly left and right like a fiend dancing at an OD funeral.

i feel one year closer that that.
__(i wish i didn't know where it was going to end

____(gol, monz: it wasn't the year of miracles afterall. just the same as the last... minus the good things)



Friday, July 11, 2008

From the Archives (an Entropy Piece, Saturday April 14, 2007)

responsible advice for management of days starting this saturday


it’s a tedious process. 
first thing’s first:
confining yourself,
just one room is best.
avoid the daylight,
it’s simply a requirement.
make lists of words
each hour to forget.
it’s good to visualise:
imagine your fingers
shorter each day.
pretend you have
one less toe.
ignore your fingers
trembling; ignore
your fingers altogether.
forget colours first;
then shades, then hues.
aim for a complete
transparency.
your heart can die
of uselessness or
overuse. pick one
and proceed.
ignore diets, stratagems,
theorems and philosophy.
forget dates.
annihilate names.
unattach your face muscles,
best to avoids frowns or smiles.
its alright to hear cars
out your window.
slow your movements.-
probably a permanent
pause is ideal.
limit your necessity
for air. achieve just
this and you win.
coax your heart
to slow by playing
melodies on the
piano.
slower and
slower
and
slow
er
er
r
.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Questions I'd Ask God If I Died: A LIST

  1. how'd i do?, __what's the score?

  2. can i have my ears back?, i didn't realize i'd be here today, i forgot to listen to Don't Smoke in Bed one last time (and Mona says to me: "dude, what's with you and that Nina Simone song?- it's like on every mix comp. you ever made")

  3. what's the trick to cold fusion? __(also inspiration, how do you fit it into us? why couldn't i have had more?)

  4. did she love me? did i mess it up, or did you want it to go down like that? (i can't imagine you did, i've never seen your work be more messy)

  5. why couldn't i have been one of those children that grows up surrounded by nature, learns to love themself through snow and trees and pebbles by the beach, and lives happily as long as it's quiet?

  6. is it ok that i was either unhappy, or gritting my teeth and managing at very best apathy?

  7. med school? _w h a t _freaking happened?

  8. all the times i made the wrong decision... can you tell me what the right one was? (i'm telling you Big Guy, i really did choose as best as i could)

  9. on my new mac they shifted all the Function keys around and so whenever i want widgets i end up turning up my volume __do you know about this?, it's really annoying. (inspire them to put it back!)

  10. can i meet Bach please?

  11. i haven't been touched in soo long... will it never happen again? __(had i known i'd have made love more often. __don't give me that look, you made it not me!)

  12. this place is timeless right?, i really need to sit down and catch my breath

  13. did i disappoint you?

  14. i know about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Wittgentstein's younger brother who lost his right arm in the war and commissioned all sorts of solo left-hand piano works, and Lucien Freud. is that going to be of any use?

  15. no one ever visited me in my dreams. may i please request involvement in the dreamtime-loved.ones-visiting program? __(here is a list of my fav. five to regularly check up on)

  16. is there a pager or something that beeps whenever people pray for me? __(and when they eventually stop, will i become lonely like elderly people in nursing homes no one comes to visit?)

  17. i'm not kidding, it really has been ages, i need a hug (no, a tulip will not do)

  18. why was it all soo hard for me?

  19. in terms of percentages (since we all are willing to take some responsibility) who is to blame? me, mom, dad, or You?

  20. did i ever surprise you?

  21. was this all you wanted of me? i swear i tried... i just feel like... i could have done alot more, __i mean, had circumstances been different.

  22. can you show me what life would have been had i (a) not gone to Haifa __(b) extended another year in Haifa for her __(c) stayed in medical school __(d) if sahar could walk

  23. i have a theory that my life was preconceived in its entirety when my parents decided it was a good idea to move to an unstable wester-African autocracy for You. __am i right? __do i suffer.enjoy the consequences of other people's faithfulness?

  24. is she ok? i just don't get it... really, please be honest, what was the point of all that?

  25. i'm the only artsy-fartsy person in my family (immediate and extended) (no one gets it and they all find it annoying). did something go wrong somewhere?

  26. i've missed you. will you sit with me a bit so we can talk about: eyelashes, solitude, infinity, pomegranate and raspberry yogurt (my favorite), my various car accidents, the fate of the prophets, how Socrates worked it all out, was actually is the best opening in chess?, why when i turned 24 i suddenly started feeling so comfortable amongst trees oceans and skies, gravity, ways not to be crushed by mass socialization, sadness, and... how did you think up love?

  27. the time i dreamt of my grandfather... why couldn't i understand him? what facility do i lack?

  28. as a human... what have i failed to grasp? __will i pay dearly?

  29. what are You thinking when i pray to You?

  30. i didn't eat enough honeydews, can we do something about it posthumously?

  31. i can't decide if it was or wasn't worth it... __i shouldn't even think about that right?, like it's probably just best to forget the whole thing ever happened... __right?

  32. (i miss holding books) __why are they so special? what have you hidden in them?

  33. some of my happiest moments include: sitting in the tiny church in Cortina and praying while it rained on bright-red geraniums outside, the day i spent on the Great Wall in China, the feeling of certainty that is the definition of love, when i was 14 and i wanted to go for a run and Sahar didn't want to be left home alone, so i pushed her wheelchair while i jogged along the pathway in Hallett Cove that led to the train station. __what are some of Yours?

  34. why do i feel soo far away from everything?

  35. have i been here before... it feels familiar?

  36. who messed me up? __no, really, stop with that nonsense. we both know. what the fu&* was wrong?

  37. if i close my eyes and jump from this cloud, will i be a raindrop? an angel? will i be a cloud or a satellite? will i land in a bed somewhere and kiss a dream into someone's forehead? can i please? will i land in my room on Clayton Ave. where i felt most at home?, or... the rock cliff at the end of First St. where i should have realized my life wasn't gonna go the way everyone else's does, and felt ready and excited about it... can i please land on the wing of the plane that flew me into Haifa the first time (it landed on August 31st 2004), looked at my face and how few lines my forehead had. __i miss some things. i miss Richard, what will happen to him? Look out for him, he's a good guy, he looked out for me.
    if i close my eyes and jump from this cloud, can i land as nothing? i can undid your existence? can i go against the conservation of matter/energy/soul?
    (the beach on the Olympic Peninsula, the sharp black rocks, the hills, the strange islands in the sea, the mist that made mermaids exist when nothing else could... can i land there? Laying in the sun silently with Martha taking pictures... __the walk back, what did i call it? __this graveyard of trees, massive white dried up trunks. chalk. all chalk.

  38. why did i have to lose her postcard? the last nice thing she ever said to me? (before her faith in me was depleted) __(i really wanted to keep that)

  39. how did You get babies feet and knees and petit hands and elbows so perfect? how'd You know we'd like them soo much?

  40. did i ever have a chance?

  41. do you mind if i skip the floating thing and just walk? it's not that i'm used to it, it's that i still would like to kick rocks (can it be moondust now?) as i move.

  42. if pronounced properly, is please? the most potent prayer? (did you hear all of mine?)

  43. please?
    please?

    please?

  44. can i try again? __that time didn't count, i didn't know anything!, i had to learn everything along the way!

  45. am i dead? (at last?) (finally?) (really?) (it can't be... i've never been so happy)

    (not now.__ let me sit here and work out what just happened... __i was never ready to be alive)

Sunday, July 6, 2008

the clownsuit melts into a rainbow, and other writings



















Christian John Olsen


yester-yesterday, someone rather seriously said to me, "you just need to dumb your writing down. we want to get it, we like how clever it is, but right now, it's just too esoteric" (he didn't say esoteric, he said: too few people really get it) (which is what esoteric means)

today, someone wrote me an email. In it, they said "I enjoy your interpretations of your writings because I like to see the process of things".

I am reminded of a famous argument between 1) Ernest Hemingway and 2) F. Scott Fitzgerald. The former, poorer, man calling the latter, more extravagant man a whore for dumbing down his writing to appeal to the masses. Consequently, we have prob (you know what, who cares?)

So i think for the rest of this post, i'm going to be straight-up.

____- i love undressing women. i love looking at them naked, i love touching: hair, eyelashes, fingertips, ankles, i like to kiss: knees, bellies, eyelids, forhead

____- i want to be a good writer. i think i am a good writer. i think it's a shame i can't be a successful bohemian writer who travels and lives and lives to tell the tale.

____- i cannot manage to write a list of resolutions for this year. Currently, we are still living in late 2006. time seems to have frozen there. when it starts again, i'm going to force myself to commit to some resolutions.

____- i miss electronic music more than anything

____- i really want my suitcase in chicago back now.

____- having recently read the Seven Valleys i am unable to stop thinking of everything in life according to it. for moments at a time i can completely embody one or another of those states of being, but inevitably, i relapse back into some ambivalent ditch besides a tree that means i am in no valley at all, on no search at all, but merely sitting besides a trail, drinking from my canteen and watching the blue sky lick its own skin to black.

____- i walked down the promenade with Monza. a little girl passing me, put her hands up and growled at me. I turned around and errrrrrrrrr!!ed right back. she looked surprised (not as surprised as her mother). She smiled, then laughed. I smiled, then laughed. She walked away. I walked away. I was happier.

____- i have begun watching movies again. i seem to have found it in myself to concentrate on things other than my universe and it's many incongruous components. Since there are to be no drugs, drinking, throwing myself into work, alone time to write, or social distractions, i am simply going to have to numb the pain with film (i am relieved)

____- i am beginning to really really miss my friends in Australia

____- Dear God:
_____i hate to pester, but, this is not really a life.
_____mind if i do something useful for a change?
_____thanks dear god.
_____happy omnipotenting.

____- i suffered a mild-size disappointment two nights ago. it will either serve as a prelude to a much larger disappointment to come, or, as a reminder to appreciate the larger miracle at the end of this.

____- isn't it interesting that i am alive long enough to perfect the art of preparing-to-die?

____- i worry that this life is slowly extinguishing my enchantment with too many things. i am too young to know some of the things i know. if more people knew what i knew, no one would get married, have children, or expect to live happily ever after. i wish i didn't know those things.

____- i cannot seem to care too much about anything anymore. ____not in a depressed way... just in a... well..., whatever way.

____- i need to decide once and for all if i'm going to buy a recording of the Busoni piano concerto or not.

____- i miss dressing nicely, and having occasion to do so.

____- if anyone who reads this lives in LA, and is keen to be my superficial friend, who will use me merely for my wit; random assortment of strange tid-bits of knowledge; physical/sexual gratification; wing man for social/sexual escapades that will inevitably leave all involved feeling lonely, alienated, and absurd; senseless chatter that ends in meaningless giggling; then write me an email. i am looking to be somebody's nobody.

____- the better you know me, the more of my silence you will see. the greatest compliment i am able to give is: when i am with you, i feel alone. I feel this way, right now, with precisely two people. I speak perfectly through breaths, the wind signals i can send when my hand moves to turn the page of a book, the timing and precision of my turning onto my other side. Mar: we really miss you. I really miss you. lots. Also i love you. (also lots). I just felt the need to say that.

____- amongst my favorite things in life: stretching my legs out under the table after i'm done eating. Monz: thanks for being the only person in the universe that is not annoyed by this quirk of mine.

____- My grandfather's brother's wife told me stories today. Another of my favorite things in life: stories elderly people know. About distant cousins being burnt in fires in Lebanon, about angry souls that demand lesser.more.nothing.everything.starshine.moondust.angel wings.dragon's claws, about my grandfather. His moodiness. His depression(s). His laughter. His mistakes. The dreams everyone is having of him now, his head slouched against the wall by the telephone, perfectly dressed in the height of 1970's fashion, young, muscular, i'm exhausted. i am too tired he says in the dream. I am scared. Why do I miss him soo much?, a man I never knew? Why do I feel that no one knows me better? Why do i feel that from his vantage point, he sees me move as a blur of light too bright for others, too near, too human, too made-of-flesh to notice?

____- i am tired of my smudged, meaningless, static-dreams. i am tired of feeling like my time is wasted. i want clairvoyant faculties, i want to travel light-years away and sit on burnt-out stars, once fire-balls, now bone-dry rocks. i want to kick moondust with my foot and watch it rise and rise and rise and drift away like smoke. i cannot. i am trapped in my head all night long. dreams of people bleeding to death. dreams of conversations about nothing, casted entirely by cardboard cutouts of people: not a real soul in sight. i am trapped in this domain. i want sublimity!

____- i have to wait a little longer to see if the mild-disappointment is going to grow into a thing with three-heads, or fizzle out and leave a little baby pheonix for me to hold to my chest and rub my cheek against.

____- i am breathing faster. i hear it works for dogs, manages to cut the timeline down a fair bit.

____- my wit misses you.
_____the world is not the same.
_____(also, i'm giving up sugar. this morning's breakfast- the remaining 4 donuts that were supposed to be yours, for 2 hours put me into a diabetic coma)

____- i am 25 years old. except for the following, i have no real qualifications in life:
_____snow can make me cry; i can speak Female fluently; Bach and Brahms are as much my father as anybody else; i believe prayer can crack skies open, spit on bald-heads, make laughing babies dance, make dancing bears cry, reorganize the atoms in my heart to better accommodate my soul, refashion the universe to accommodate me

____- i prefer public transport and walking to cars. i dislike cars and find them very stressful. also i dislike the act of putting gas in the car. i dislike getting my car serviced. i dislike the noises it makes. i despise looking for parking. i can never seem to recall the process of driving anywhere once i notice i am there- i simply have zoned out the entire time. it is dangerous, and yet, i cannot make my mind stop.

____- Dear Body:
_____i am genuinely sorry about the 8 donuts.

____- Dear readers, Dear art of poetry:
_____no one understands my writing. i am sorry to have failed you both.

____- i used to dance. i used to lose myself in it. i used to numb my body in hopes of feeling my soul. i'd slouch into corners of laserlitclubs, music blaring (unable to distinguish light from sound from flesh), and with eyes half-open.closed, i'd bite my own lips, and rub my hands into one another, rocking off-beat from side to side. i would think: this is my soul! this is my soul! i felt like i had severed my body. i felt light.

____- i am speaking honestly: Dear World,
_____i am sorry to have failed you, i promise it was only 65% my fault.
_____i am trying to fix it... it's proving to be difficult.

____- i am proud to say: i haven't the slightest fear of death. should i die in 20 minutes, here is what i'd be thinking: finally. Monz better remember what i wanted for my epitaph.

I cannot be more clear than i have been.
this is clear as it gets.
this is who i am.
but,
cannot remain.

Saturday, July 5, 2008



____iii.

and she said:
do you see me?,
_and if so, why don't you say anything?

and he said:
_everything is invisible but you.

__(and she turned her head and was about to smile)


Friday, July 4, 2008

dreams of the recovering soul


nerves, originally uploaded by Federico Erra.

i refuse to leave my bed.
my soul sits in a corner, arms around knees, and rocks back and forth.

a little earthquake somewhere,
__(like a lizard dashing past in Brisbane)

(i do what i can to drown out the date with
Shostakovich, sleep, fast-paced numbing movies)

i wish i could take her to a piano store.
she likes to hide under the lids.
she once had no body,
she misses the lightness.
once, she sounded like:
__wind __staring senseless into space __train-station-smoke-reeking old women

, now the laborious drone of a voice.
__(i once saw her try and french kiss a cello. i want her tongue she whispered to me)

are we there yet?

now she sits in her corner, waiting for Elysium.
she wants to walk to Arcadia.
she likes to skim rocks off the surface of the Styx,
she sits on the banks, i hear a choir of young boys she tells me.

the mornings can be tough.
the light deceives her,
reminds me... ya know?

yeah. i do.

she doesn't like to be touched much these days.
if i'm on a couch, she lays on the floor, reading Sisyphus, listening to Thomas Tallis.
you're so far away__she stares at me, her eyes still there
__(pomegranates, ambrosia, the blond curly hair of her cherub friends, the giant wings of her friend Gabriel,
__she says to me: the thing i miss most about home, is the feel of the gate. __do you have any idea what it's like to walk on clouds?
__[...]
__she smiles.

she sits in her corner.
rocking.

sweet apparition, please don't be sad...
__(she misses Caravaggio she says)
i nod supportively.
want to hold hands?
(shakes head)

i avoid the sunlight. __the morning hours. __the sound of the summer morning beginning to roast what's left of fall leaves.
i want to let in air,
sometimes she hears stories of trees and beaches and faraway realms that make her smile.

do you know how old i am?
you still look lovely.
(she smiles, my eyes blur a little where her face should be)

she runs a hand through her hair,
exhales (i feel like i've been kissed goodbye)
don't leave, i feel__ lost, if. you ..

(she'd rather live in a Chagall.
i disappoint her)

Thursday, July 3, 2008

The Remains of the Day: some concluding thoughts, on a memorable day


., originally uploaded by snjezana..

untitled, snjezana

THREE MIRACLES THAT HAPPENED TODAY: A LIST

  1. I knew the cd was scratched. It had been playing up for weeks, and always at my favorite spot. I slid it in anyway. Hope I guess, listened to the first song. The second started, I waited for the scratch, instead, I heard it:

    and look at you and me,
    still here, together

    it looks so plain on the page, alone like that; I cherish that phrase as much as I love anything from Bach or Brahms. It's perfect. Perfectly expressed. The music exalts the sentiment. Something so banal becomes so important. It worked. The track played through. I didn't know how to thank God.

  2. too-tired-to-put-into-words, I arrived home. Exhausted. Hungry. I had not eaten the microwaved hot-dog. The day had been far to difficult to end it with a hot dog. or an icecream sandwich. Or a burger (again).

    "Where are you going?"
    "food."
    "it's nearly 11"
    "i know"
    "nothing's open"
    "i need to walk"
    "how do you have energy to walk?"
    "i have energy for nothing else."
    "oh! stop with the poetry already"
    [shrug]
    "where are you going?"
    "i want japanese. but i'm sure it's closed. i'll just go to the diner"
    "you hate their food"
    "still"

    I walked down the street. Mostly the night sleeping behind dark glass, fluorescent night-lights to keep dirty dreams company.
    I stopped. OPEN Mon-Fri 6pm-2am. really?

    green tea. chirashi. miso. broiled shitake mushrooms.
    ________a day well ended.

  3. my sister sleeps in her own house. alone.
    perhaps i had to give up my independence for hers. [shrug], whatever. it's a miracle

*__*__*

i love the color of swimming pools at night. like slabs of alien-blue. it's how i imagine infinity must look (if i could ever get close enough to see her face to face).

can i name my daughter Eternity? is that a stripper name? I can't decide.

*__*__*

in the car. 40 more minutes of this and surely i'll be dead. the highway, tired, sways this way and that; the tongue of some long-necked dragon. it's breaths tinting the air yellow. This is the way i'll always remember LA. cemented spines that exhale yellow into the air. twinkles of harsh white and red. little mice in little 4-wheeled cages sitting and sweating it out.

*__*__*

SYMBOLS I HAD PLANNED FOR WHEN I HAD A HOME (THAT I NEVER HAD): A LIST

  1. When i finished uni, a white blanket.
    In my home, by my sofa, i wanted a trunk/chest, filled with pillows, and a soft-white blanket. It would be there in case winter chanced by. in case Time was late, and i lay there and read, or watched movies, or made love.

    [i have never had sex in a swimming pool. (end of thought)]

  2. turntables. technics 1200s. in my living room. I would play records, dubs. Beats and a bassline. Run to the piano, improvise chords. it would be heaven in a living room.

  3. shelves. probably white. i wanted all my books at arm's length. i would check things. Words from my two volume World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary. Remember a poem, walk to my shelf, pick one (pick me! pick me! they'd chant) read.

    [i think i have lost the concept of home. it has been too long since i fell asleep in a woman's hair. is that what home means to me now?, to fall asleep in a woman's hair? if i add: and she still be there in the morning, years, it's been years. Have i been alive? Can i consider myself to be human, all these nights?]

  4. you. If you were in it, it'd be my home.

  5. ...
    ...___?
    ______(i can't think of anything anymore. it's gone

*__*__*

i walk home wearing a plaid shirt i haven't worn in months. it lost a button in haifa. i think your eyes on it- it got nervous and leaped. sleeves rolled. a mostly unread copy of Foreign Affairs under my arm. (i don't know why i bothered, i knew i was going to stare straight down at my green tea the whole time anyway).

Older Chests by Damien Rice played on. What is life that I should find myself at 11:49pm walking down Santa Monica Rd. on a Wednesday?

*__*__*

after days like today... i wonder how i manage to fit my massive wings under my skin.
i undress and stare at my back in the mirror for an hour.
no trace of them.

(and yet, i still hunch my shoulders when i walk through doorways)


*__*__*

a new world just began.
that's all that ye need to know.