Trisha Brown

Feet find a softening earth
Earth softens under feet particular to no one, mine in that special way

Changing temperature meeting the skin that tells no lies.

April 11

As she goes through heartbreak
I watch myself relive ours. A
Small (nearly imperceptible)
Canvas curtains my torn mind.
My spiraling mind, full of
Text, deigns to empty on a
Trodden doorstep: All astroturf
And blue my heart of plastic
Proportion. I remember small
Moments huge. You're nowhere and
It's unceasingly intimate. I
Met your mother. He helps his
Mother. I ignore mine. Something
So subtle calls to me, wanting.
I leave my claw marks in your
Dusty mirror. You wipe me down.
We are orange and then silver.
"If I sit still long enough,
A poem will emerge," I think.
I can't stop watching myself,
Tipping my hat to reality. In
My peripheral vision everything
Smells like speed. It's almost
Too simple. I remember your
Simple way and I feel grateful.
The wordless pursuit of a body in
Time will never cease to
Grip me. My eyes are a
Small canvas. No sprawling
Moments. One sculpture for
A face—the one I can never
See. I'm finding a word in a
City, trying for generosity. As
Syntax is encountered so too
Do we course on. A river cannot
Be stagnant, else it's moving
Backwards. Only forward. Back
And up to go forward and out.
I get so tired and I keep
Walking. I give up for a
Moment before stopping that.
I stop so I can move. You
Move. I go. It's too much for a
Spell. Then something is
Published and the future
Opens before me. "Missing you"
Is a state I've had to know,
Much like a family. I've meant
To tell you I think we have
Shared values but you're
Ceasing to be an object.
Just in my hands: this time.
You slide through. A small
Canvas. A burgeoning bookshelf.
I charge myself. You lay asleep
To my side in my mind. I am
Myriad things. I say hello. You say
Hello. You opt for a route I hadn't
Even noticed. I see things about you
As we reveal further each other.

Birthday poem

Forty times long my love
Everything learns everything
A sloped line loves orgasming
Line that hat's way different
She loves his loves and he loves
She so I go the way bristly
And gray exhausted late and
Protruding I move for in a
Non-cab with my on top of mom
Who bought the ticket and
All the food she's leaving
And hope the performance I
Make at the place builds down
Across the room away closed
Or no one will save you
Either powerful camera's bore
Up aging nostrils into my brain
And practice eludes me you're in
The place doing the thing I'm in
No fit place to be this alone
And swagged out screaming
Dogs share this built-down
Space does no one really have
Time for me? "No one cares
About me," I think. My mom
Got her uterus removed last
Month. My first home. I
Felt tears when I talked about
Him. For knows reason. When
Nothing works something works.
We all sit with the fabric of
Our shirts touching. "I won't move
For you." I'm doing the things
I don't know how to do as a
Way to retrain the habitual
Old women who spin the loom 
Of my mind. No lunch
Breaks. You wish for a studio
Apartment and a job you love
For your birthday, those things
The status of which a wish
Becomes. All their own, and
Really it'll all either be ok
Or not ok, you know. The
Rides longness crashed into
The trio's ethnicity in strapped
Tides, waves of leather exhaus-
Tion. Another time is
Fucking fake like an
RSVP or museum merch or
White people or assistants.
Your life is everything you
Can see. You're doing fine.
You are loved. You are walking
With. You are toward. No-
Thing is wrong except
Those things you think
Wrongness of. You are around.
Everyone is still in love with you,
You altruistic heartbreaker.
You love I. I love you.

Geometrically, all that two people can do is come together and apart

Really she seeks truth. She is dreaming about everyone all the time. And she's so embarrassed about it. As she turns a corner she watches you pass. A rock with your name loves her. She loves only the name.

Deleuze in a Dream

––Time is the deepest intuition.

––You know I hate it when you speak in the superlative. 

Poem

In my secret city there are churches on every corner. I run into my favorite lover every half hour, and, oriented toward warmth, we find an uppermost alcove in which to speak. I don't skip class; I skip to class. I make it. I am always on time. My hands resist all aging. There are no phones. We know each other's monogamous pasts. There is only one invented self, one constructed moment. My output is propulsive as is my walking, my movement bounds and reveals. I apply. We enter into a singular room as words pour into our hands—yours on all manner of limb: mine, naturally. Trees don't die, unlike us. 

My body is a well-worn copper roof. Your fingernails tresses of freshly-mown hair. I gather your sweat in the mini bathtub of my studio apartment as I check the time on my sister's watch. We have the same best friend. An upright piano in my living room signifies my intention to stay. Your hope is permanent in me. We tell each other, "You're smelling wonderfully animal today darling," with 40 different expressions amid the time. Everybody comes to the party. Our capacity is infinite. I peel aside a handmade curtain as the show begins.

"I'm Not Interested in Purely Aesthetic People"

Postmodern/Pedestrian:

- external causes

- ends-based, purpose of a movement is to accomplish a goal-

- measured by numbers arbitrarily (counting)

- invert-able movements: the simplicity of single movements allows for instant reversal/inversion

- functional

- without flourish

- is what it is

- systems of weight shift

- meaningless, borderline ridiculous

- propositional

- directional

- working within the smallest arena of what the physical structure can do

- movements are simple enough to narrate, describe

- androgynous

- abides by certain rules about space

- the moving body is just a moving body in relation to the systems of the world, to the facts of the world

- cumulative

- incidental

- movements have an organic outcome to realize: realized when the dancer gets out of her own way

Balletic/Extended:

- on two feet, one orientation: always upright, even when horizontal/angled

- repeats structures of patterns

- tires you out and you keep going

- positional system: one static part, one mobile part

- repeatable on (2) different “sides”

- reverence is embodied, bowing occurs as an expected ceremony

- systems of counter-forces, isometrics: pushing and pulling at the same time

- twisting

- make it appear easy; don’t show exhaustion

- ability to be on outer edges of a physical limitation (structural) is valued

- virtuosity + musicality = genius

- long static positions of corps de ballet (e.g. your foot is cramping but you cannot move, or else…?)

- disconnection between sensation (inner and outer) and the requirements of the form

- ornamental, gestural

- self-conscious all the time by necessity

- attached (to idea of how I look)

- looks one way, is another

- easily caricatur-ized

- forces deep within cause movement

- “style” is easy to apply to other forms (has a clear aesthetics)

- angular

- translatable, can come in and out of the state