You know, until now, we never acknowledged you.
You also know how you're the only nation congealed from the blood
of a slave revolt on the first day of 1804.
You know, Port-au-Prince, how you've played the pauper.
We knew you were flying white flags because you couldn't afford color,
We knew you were coming up a population while breaking down immunities.
We knew you were building cities out of iron wrinkled and leather-red in time.
We found out that even the familyless homeless praise jesus for their fortunes.
We found out that a black Frenchman, Jean Jacques Dessalines, can raise a nation to its feet,
but that his successors will never give
that nation
_________________________________________________________a chair to sit down
in_________________________________________________or a glass of water to drink.
We found out that somewhere between three thousand phlegmy gangs and scratchy blankets
of primarypoverty, a people can still make a beautiful language sprint between their mouths.
You can still build homes along dirtish hillsides and ignore the discretionless excretions.
You can still congregate without roofs, without walls, without windows.
You can still sing your iloveyous to spouses and children caught between bricks and mortar, pillars and floors.
You can still call on your Taino to guide you to Pic la Selle where the earth won't eat you.
But we only started looking at you.
Noticing your dimples and cigarette burnt arms because you fell in public,
you broke so many bones, and
we cried when we saw how much blood escaped the homes of your veins,
just on their way to the city of your clock.
We never saw you before, broken friend, but we want to come to your rescue now.
Because we can and because you can't pay those medical bills alone.
Why we feel bad now, for you, for now, is beyond us.
But we're here.
Maybe because a slam on the table doesn't get our attention, but a smack across the face does.
Maybe because your tears with gouged-out eyes made us do more than just change the channel.
Maybe because you needed to become white with asbestos-powdered noses before we put you in
the spotlight.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Current writing ideas to consider before writing
2. compassionate for the inanimate
3. Ginkos grandfathers old autumn and wrinkle in the soul of the cold.
4. Punks picking noses with Priests and Politicians making ecstasy O's and Prostitutes weeping.
5.Pervasive perversions, annoyances annointment, Pigmentation Segregation
6. If you're going to stand in a way, don't stand in the way.
7. He was such an asshole; he wouldn't even hit me!
8. the break up is real now: he defriended me on facebook.
9. "They don't need explanation; they want explanation. If they don't get it, they're lost and confused, and that makes them feel uncomfortable." -my sister on her rejection of explanatory text accompanying visual art.
10. "It looks like a field of butterflies outside." -Wendy Xu
A Letter to The Them
Having to endure the vexations and frustrations
of incredulously fruitless plans and conversations
has brought me to the reluctant decision to accept
"pity[ing] this busy monster, manunkind,
not." *
I abhor circumstances and persons without fruition,
be they extrinsically tangible or intrinsicically motivating.
The irrevocability of your w a v e r i n g
attitudes
perpetuates a distance
between us that you Must acknowledge.
Should you be so ignorant as to wave a hand and up a chin, it should have to suffice
that we oughtn't waste energies navigating the choppy murkiness of
unsures
and
itakethatbacks.
Get a [grip] on, then get a [grip] on how you >--connect--< to others.
So far, the wiring is making the b u l bl i nk, and we're trying to read.
Next time I find myself in front of
spanakopita, I'll think of you.
*"[pity this busy monster, manunkind,]" is a poem from Edward Estlin Cummings's 1944 collection "1 X 1 [ONE TIMES ONE]."
of incredulously fruitless plans and conversations
has brought me to the reluctant decision to accept
"pity[ing] this busy monster, manunkind,
not." *
I abhor circumstances and persons without fruition,
be they extrinsically tangible or intrinsicically motivating.
The irrevocability of your w a v e r i n g
attitudes
perpetuates a distance
between us that you Must acknowledge.
Should you be so ignorant as to wave a hand and up a chin, it should have to suffice
that we oughtn't waste energies navigating the choppy murkiness of
unsures
and
itakethatbacks.
Get a [grip] on
So far, the wiring is making the b u l bl i nk, and we're trying to read.
Next time I find myself in front of
spanakopita, I'll think of you.
*"[pity this busy monster, manunkind,]" is a poem from Edward Estlin Cummings's 1944 collection "1 X 1 [ONE TIMES ONE]."
Monday, October 12, 2009
Freckles
I told her to stop counting her tears like steps
behind her exodus from dependence
and just tell me already. My ears and eyes
sought subtleties to appetize my idling.
we lay for ninety three minutes in speaklessness,
beside gasps and dashes of beginning syllables
darted from initiation to conclusion. Her
tears ran from the backdoors of her eyes
and into the alleys of her hair and bridges
of her nose, the red of her eyes glowing Amsterdam.
My eyes were closed all the while since there
was little to appreciate beside her sadness and
the overcast skies of an early New York autumn. How
apropos the lighting for the dollhousesize conversation.
"You already know." No, I didn't, I don't, we never do.
Men are deficient in many ways, and filling those knows
is one of them. Tell us, women, outright like a child.
Gentle weeps can mean death, parents, or bloating.
I wanted to play the part in interrogation of a
compassionate fool, and chose to scream instead,
whispering "I don't think you realize how goddamn
annoying and frustrating it is to leave me like this!"
And I had meant to leave me sitting in anxiety,
but she replied punctually "h-How d'you know?"
behind her exodus from dependence
and just tell me already. My ears and eyes
sought subtleties to appetize my idling.
we lay for ninety three minutes in speaklessness,
beside gasps and dashes of beginning syllables
darted from initiation to conclusion. Her
tears ran from the backdoors of her eyes
and into the alleys of her hair and bridges
of her nose, the red of her eyes glowing Amsterdam.
My eyes were closed all the while since there
was little to appreciate beside her sadness and
the overcast skies of an early New York autumn. How
apropos the lighting for the dollhousesize conversation.
"You already know." No, I didn't, I don't, we never do.
Men are deficient in many ways, and filling those knows
is one of them. Tell us, women, outright like a child.
Gentle weeps can mean death, parents, or bloating.
I wanted to play the part in interrogation of a
compassionate fool, and chose to scream instead,
whispering "I don't think you realize how goddamn
annoying and frustrating it is to leave me like this!"
And I had meant to leave me sitting in anxiety,
but she replied punctually "h-How d'you know?"
Sunday, May 31, 2009
God. Goddamn it.
When I began wakin up, I couldn hear anythin but the static drone of everone else's A/C. I can' rub ma eyes out to that white noise, and I can' stand that harsh EH EH EH EH EH EH, so instead I gotta alarm set to WROK, 98.7 FM "The Rock" to rooster-crow me up an' out. Usually I need more than Fleetwood Mac to garagedoor ma eyes and telescope ma fists. But the lilting "Gypsy" snakecharmed ma synapses, at least. After hittin the snooze five times and countin
one
___two
______three
__________four
______________five conscious numbers
shitnowamahalfhourlate, I did it. I sat up an' swung legs outta bed, scratched crack, jiggled dick, an' opened arms to a new fuckin day.
I hava studio window so I can see Brooklyn Bridge ottovit. I wish I had suspension cables strong enough to hold me up for more thana century; sometimes the coffee and overthecounters don cut it. Maybe I should switch to black and white, respectively. A wide window also means voyeurs have a hootenanny with me. I don care if the redeyed insomniacs and yuppie earlybirds across the way see me sprawled up from down. I stretch my Holocaust emaciation right there just to piss em off. Ribs and fists makin a regal entrance into the public mornin.
Maybe they like it: one Suit 'n' Skirt does in the red brick penthouse lookin down at me. She pouts after slappin on lipstick and kisses the glass of her seethestreet window sometimes, an' I know i's for me. I know I got one guy across the way with bottlecap glasses growlin his way through the world and sneerin each sippa espresso with scoldin eyes on mine smirkin. Another, few stories lower, is a flamin broseph desperately attempting to subtly spy ma pimpled ass when he's flippin a tie in the mirror. He looks good, but no; I wouldn fuck em.
Is it odd that I wonder about their lives sometimes? I mean, I got my own problems an all, and thinkin about others is a nice, cheap waya goin about not havin to deal all the time. Don hafta pay any fees or bother any girls, jus stand an wonder through the window. Suit 'n' Skirt's prolly got a man or two that she keeps aroun for a good time and dinners outta the house, but they like her more than she likes em. I know she comes home after work after dark all the time because she's walkin roun, trippin an' stumblin until 11 otherwise. Those kisses aren't for me: they're sweet but superficial goodbyes in her earlier-than-his morning. An she's gonna keep seein em until they realize themselves that she's not treatin exclusive explosives an outta all the arms dealers they've worked with, she's the quintessential cutthroat.
Bottlecap's gotta family's jus beginnin. I can see the kid in his arms bouncin sometimes. He stares. He doesn coddle or gaze lovinly. He doesn kiss his alright wife without seemin distracted. She doesn pay im too much mind either, though. He's at the right age with the right savings and the right job in the right place with the wrong woman. And I see that in his few and far between smiles. He's not sneerin at the street's happenins; he's sneerin at his decision. It's worst when he talks to her over the kitchen island and each time she rushes to the kid cryin, he walks away from the island draggin his fingers off and away.
And Lispy McFootball could have any man he wants, if he wanted men. I know he does. Why doesn't he? Maybe he grew up in Indiana. You're in New York, man. Lou Reed New York: "Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side." Bob Dylan New York: "Oh the times, they are achangin'." Jesus Christ.
So stretchin out like I do, I reach to grapple and hooklinesinker those last moments of ephemeral but entreatied unconsciousness rapidly ascending into nothing. Like a diver's lungs'll explode comin up from the depths of the ocean if he doesn exhale, ma imagination's gonna have it out with ma awakin memory if he can' remember details that could mosey into riffs, poems, equations, prophecies, or actions that lead men to greater glories than their conscious could've provided.
Those nonsequitur flashfictions in my life where I have no responsibilities and no control over anything. Anything. Those who say you can at least control yur own life, or yur decisions, didn take dreams into consideration: I've killed men an' kissed sisters in my dreams; uttered untouchable names and touched unutterable friends in my dreams. No control.
The lady next door started hittin' the wall widder fists instead of her usual "Shet up!" so I figured she had a rough night an' deserved a little quiet. Lord knows that bitch's got reason nough to complain: gottawaxhisbackhair husband, brattish kids, and a cataracted dog. The works.
I smacked the radio head, heavy stepped to the stall, threw a roach on the wall into the tub drain with a churna the faucets, and was about t' hop in when the window struckmestabbedmekilledme. This closet peephole into outside forced me closer to gritting my teeth than anything before. If I'm ever in prison, I've already got real nice associations with sieve-thin grids and grates in opaque glass now. Jesus Christ.
I never understood why Whitman was so fond of the word "yawp" until I heard it away from verse. She didn scream, an' she didn sigh with her throat out, but she yawped. Like a kid gettin licked witha belt or a doe before somethin' bites i's neck. The mornin was spoiled with this wall of a beached whale moan, someone's untraceable agony. Was this someone I had seen through my window before? I never considered considering voices in the faces I had come to know through my kaleidoscope psychology profiles an' hypotheses.
I thought about connectin a face who had to taste blood in the back of her throat: a woman jus--just absolutely hysterical...uh, her pinkin streakin face collapsed into her tremblin hands. Fuhgeddabadit now, c'mon-is a nice mornin. Like she's got Parkinson's or somethin. Mornin hair, uh, cascadin over. Flurries of dreams and nonsequitur flashfictions gettin her hair mussed overnight tossin and tumblin. Every part of her body spasming with each abrupt breath. Catch your breath, lady, c'mon. I looked out of my squarefoot glass 'n' fence open nexta the street. Ambulance lights dancin roun the surroundin windows. Ambulance sittin an' hummin. Oh god, c'mon No. Waitinta serve humanity (yet knowing that its heart couldn't beat fast enough to race too many dyin lovelies to the hospital in time).
I can only imagine what happened, buh why would I wanna?
As a distant humanitarian, I stared into the air for a consideration, eyes blurred and crusted over, tryna concentrate on some onesizefitsall prayer. I couldn muster up more than "God. Goddamn it." A softness for myself. Entirely inaudible to her. Was it because I really cared?
Or because I really wanted to care?
Or had I wanted to believe that I cared but really didn't?
I didn't know her. But is anonymity reason nough for apathy? Is this why news anchors are so calm when recitin genocides?
Even if I did care, she prolly would've been just a mere acquaintance, a petty "Bleshou" to an overheard petite sneeze while standin next to one another and waiting for the screechin metro to take us to our eighthour burdens. Maybe I'm anyone an' she's noone.
We weren't even that.
I couldn tell who or what she was from her exacerbated weep (for solace and silence, I'm thinkin). Let it out, lady, let it fall. If she was younger, maybe I'd checked her out down in the diner at the corner of our streets before; chewin on some bacon, thought about fuckin her from behind. I didn know. If she was older, maybe I thought about how happy she is in an "American Beauty" sorta moment of reflection.
As an ignorant-everyone, I caught ma breath, blinked, and took one stride into cool blue tiles with even cooler water punchin me in the back. I oscillated ma head under what felt like cicadas explodin an' meltin down my back an' face. Remnantsa summer dronin beetles drippin from ma hair. I pissed in the shower thinkin bout how I couldn see ma contribution to the faucet-rain illuminated by the sunlight cascadin in then. I thought bout how the water surroundin taunted how I hadn't cried in 4 anda half years. I miss you an' I'm sorry I don think boutchu more often... --why did I feel so awful bout it? People die everyday.
Why did I think that someone died?
This was gettin ridiculous.
I tried t' focus on wakin up.
By the time I gototta the shower, the ambulance was gone and I couldn hear the woman yelpin no more, so I didn have to close the window. I shaved in silence. I brushed my teeth in silence. I went through the motions of corporate presentability in silence. I straightened ma tie in frontuva mirror, and proceeded to drag my hard hand over ma face, closing ma eyelids with the thumb an' forefinger like I'd read bout before. Jesus Christ.
one
___two
______three
__________four
______________five conscious numbers
shitnowamahalfhourlate, I did it. I sat up an' swung legs outta bed, scratched crack, jiggled dick, an' opened arms to a new fuckin day.
I hava studio window so I can see Brooklyn Bridge ottovit. I wish I had suspension cables strong enough to hold me up for more thana century; sometimes the coffee and overthecounters don cut it. Maybe I should switch to black and white, respectively. A wide window also means voyeurs have a hootenanny with me. I don care if the redeyed insomniacs and yuppie earlybirds across the way see me sprawled up from down. I stretch my Holocaust emaciation right there just to piss em off. Ribs and fists makin a regal entrance into the public mornin.
Maybe they like it: one Suit 'n' Skirt does in the red brick penthouse lookin down at me. She pouts after slappin on lipstick and kisses the glass of her seethestreet window sometimes, an' I know i's for me. I know I got one guy across the way with bottlecap glasses growlin his way through the world and sneerin each sippa espresso with scoldin eyes on mine smirkin. Another, few stories lower, is a flamin broseph desperately attempting to subtly spy ma pimpled ass when he's flippin a tie in the mirror. He looks good, but no; I wouldn fuck em.
Is it odd that I wonder about their lives sometimes? I mean, I got my own problems an all, and thinkin about others is a nice, cheap waya goin about not havin to deal all the time. Don hafta pay any fees or bother any girls, jus stand an wonder through the window. Suit 'n' Skirt's prolly got a man or two that she keeps aroun for a good time and dinners outta the house, but they like her more than she likes em. I know she comes home after work after dark all the time because she's walkin roun, trippin an' stumblin until 11 otherwise. Those kisses aren't for me: they're sweet but superficial goodbyes in her earlier-than-his morning. An she's gonna keep seein em until they realize themselves that she's not treatin exclusive explosives an outta all the arms dealers they've worked with, she's the quintessential cutthroat.
Bottlecap's gotta family's jus beginnin. I can see the kid in his arms bouncin sometimes. He stares. He doesn coddle or gaze lovinly. He doesn kiss his alright wife without seemin distracted. She doesn pay im too much mind either, though. He's at the right age with the right savings and the right job in the right place with the wrong woman. And I see that in his few and far between smiles. He's not sneerin at the street's happenins; he's sneerin at his decision. It's worst when he talks to her over the kitchen island and each time she rushes to the kid cryin, he walks away from the island draggin his fingers off and away.
And Lispy McFootball could have any man he wants, if he wanted men. I know he does. Why doesn't he? Maybe he grew up in Indiana. You're in New York, man. Lou Reed New York: "Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side." Bob Dylan New York: "Oh the times, they are achangin'." Jesus Christ.
So stretchin out like I do, I reach to grapple and hooklinesinker those last moments of ephemeral but entreatied unconsciousness rapidly ascending into nothing. Like a diver's lungs'll explode comin up from the depths of the ocean if he doesn exhale, ma imagination's gonna have it out with ma awakin memory if he can' remember details that could mosey into riffs, poems, equations, prophecies, or actions that lead men to greater glories than their conscious could've provided.
Those nonsequitur flashfictions in my life where I have no responsibilities and no control over anything. Anything. Those who say you can at least control yur own life, or yur decisions, didn take dreams into consideration: I've killed men an' kissed sisters in my dreams; uttered untouchable names and touched unutterable friends in my dreams. No control.
The lady next door started hittin' the wall widder fists instead of her usual "Shet up!" so I figured she had a rough night an' deserved a little quiet. Lord knows that bitch's got reason nough to complain: gottawaxhisbackhair husband, brattish kids, and a cataracted dog. The works.
I smacked the radio head, heavy stepped to the stall, threw a roach on the wall into the tub drain with a churna the faucets, and was about t' hop in when the window struckmestabbedmekilledme. This closet peephole into outside forced me closer to gritting my teeth than anything before. If I'm ever in prison, I've already got real nice associations with sieve-thin grids and grates in opaque glass now. Jesus Christ.
I never understood why Whitman was so fond of the word "yawp" until I heard it away from verse. She didn scream, an' she didn sigh with her throat out, but she yawped. Like a kid gettin licked witha belt or a doe before somethin' bites i's neck. The mornin was spoiled with this wall of a beached whale moan, someone's untraceable agony. Was this someone I had seen through my window before? I never considered considering voices in the faces I had come to know through my kaleidoscope psychology profiles an' hypotheses.
I thought about connectin a face who had to taste blood in the back of her throat: a woman jus--just absolutely hysterical...uh, her pinkin streakin face collapsed into her tremblin hands. Fuhgeddabadit now, c'mon-is a nice mornin. Like she's got Parkinson's or somethin. Mornin hair, uh, cascadin over. Flurries of dreams and nonsequitur flashfictions gettin her hair mussed overnight tossin and tumblin. Every part of her body spasming with each abrupt breath. Catch your breath, lady, c'mon. I looked out of my squarefoot glass 'n' fence open nexta the street. Ambulance lights dancin roun the surroundin windows. Ambulance sittin an' hummin. Oh god, c'mon No. Waitinta serve humanity (yet knowing that its heart couldn't beat fast enough to race too many dyin lovelies to the hospital in time).
I can only imagine what happened, buh why would I wanna?
As a distant humanitarian, I stared into the air for a consideration, eyes blurred and crusted over, tryna concentrate on some onesizefitsall prayer. I couldn muster up more than "God. Goddamn it." A softness for myself. Entirely inaudible to her. Was it because I really cared?
Or because I really wanted to care?
Or had I wanted to believe that I cared but really didn't?
I didn't know her. But is anonymity reason nough for apathy? Is this why news anchors are so calm when recitin genocides?
Even if I did care, she prolly would've been just a mere acquaintance, a petty "Bleshou" to an overheard petite sneeze while standin next to one another and waiting for the screechin metro to take us to our eighthour burdens. Maybe I'm anyone an' she's noone.
We weren't even that.
I couldn tell who or what she was from her exacerbated weep (for solace and silence, I'm thinkin). Let it out, lady, let it fall. If she was younger, maybe I'd checked her out down in the diner at the corner of our streets before; chewin on some bacon, thought about fuckin her from behind. I didn know. If she was older, maybe I thought about how happy she is in an "American Beauty" sorta moment of reflection.
As an ignorant-everyone, I caught ma breath, blinked, and took one stride into cool blue tiles with even cooler water punchin me in the back. I oscillated ma head under what felt like cicadas explodin an' meltin down my back an' face. Remnantsa summer dronin beetles drippin from ma hair. I pissed in the shower thinkin bout how I couldn see ma contribution to the faucet-rain illuminated by the sunlight cascadin in then. I thought bout how the water surroundin taunted how I hadn't cried in 4 anda half years. I miss you an' I'm sorry I don think boutchu more often... --why did I feel so awful bout it? People die everyday.
Why did I think that someone died?
This was gettin ridiculous.
I tried t' focus on wakin up.
By the time I gototta the shower, the ambulance was gone and I couldn hear the woman yelpin no more, so I didn have to close the window. I shaved in silence. I brushed my teeth in silence. I went through the motions of corporate presentability in silence. I straightened ma tie in frontuva mirror, and proceeded to drag my hard hand over ma face, closing ma eyelids with the thumb an' forefinger like I'd read bout before. Jesus Christ.
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