Of A Duet

WHAT LEAVES BEHIND CHANGE  

IN

ITS WAKE THERE IS ONLY MORE CHANGE

A SINE WAVE SLOWLY EXAMINED––

A BREAKING SHIMMERING 

THE COLOSSAL LOSS THAT IS LETTING GO

OF HABITUAL PATTERNS VISITED ME

LAST NIGHT IN A SILENT DREAM

I VERGE AND SWERVE THROUGH MY

OWN FINGERTIPS LIKE IT’S

NOTHING. I LONG FOR REST. I

ADORE THIS MISUNDERSTANDING ATMOSPHERE.

I UNDERSTAND THINGS BETTER WITH DISTANCE, MAYBE

I UNDERSTAND THINGS BETTER BY UNDERSTANDING WHAT THEY ARE NOT

YES

DISTANCE, TOO, IS HERE

THERE IS NOWHERE THAT IS NOT DISTANCE

BE BOLD
BE KIND
AND DON’T IMPRESS

Vast Sight

YOUR BREAKING IS AUDIBLE.
SUBJECT YOURSELF TO SOUND

AFTER SOUND AND, NUDE,

PLUNGE, TAILFRIST, INTO 

WHAT IS 

YOU COULD REALLY DO ANYTHING

YOU PUT YOUR SPINE TO

NOW THAT YOU’VE FOUND

YOUR RHYTHM, THIS,

––FORGET IT.

LEAVE EVERYTHING BEHIND

NO TRACE IN SIGHT VAST.

Movement Happens When I Stop, Available

I BUILT YOU A FIRE IN OUR ONE 

MARRED WORLD

IN MY DREAM I READ TO YOU 

IN MY BED I ITCHED AND CREAKED

FOR YOU, LONGING LANGUOROUSLY

SHE LISTENS TO ME BECAUSE SHE

KNOWS ME

LIKE THE CITY KNOWS ME:

OUTSIDE IN THROUGH BONES

AND INTRACTABLE PAUSES

A SET OF RULES DETERMINE OUR ALIVENESS, 

MYTHOLOGIES STACK AS I HAVE 

MY MORNING POURING THOUGHT:

A THOUGHT OF MORNING

MY MORNING THOUGHT OF POURING

IN MANY WAYS I STILL FEEL LIKE

A LITTLE GIRL IN A RED PONCHO

WAITING FOR MY STOP, MY MOTHER’S EYES IN MINE

I REMEMBER ALL THAT NOTICING AS 

IF IT WERE TOMORROW’S PLAN

AND ALL THOSE PLANS WE HAD, 

ALL THAT SLEEP THAT WOULD FUEL OUR FUTURE.

I MAKE AND MAKE AND MAKE,

ANCHORED BY YOUR DISTAL LOVE

FORMED REPETITIVELY BY THIS MEMORIZING

FACULTY. 

I STILL SEE YOU

I STILL WISH YOU

WHEN I WRITE ONE GOOD LINE I 

THINK OF YOU. I WANT TO MAKE YOU PROUD, TO SEE ME

LIKE THIS TREE, JUST HERE

TO WISH YOU INTO ROOTEDNESS.

No Title

 IN A PLAY WHAT HAPPENS DOES SOMETHING STAY IN YOU OR DOES THE HEALED CHILD EMERGE SIDEWISE FROM HER LIKE-LONG-LOST-LOVERS BOX OR SCREENED-IN-PORCH BODY DON'T COMPROMISE YOUR IMMUNITY FOR ME DON'T PEEL YOURSELF AWAY FROM THIS SCENE TOO EARLY OR TOO LATE WE SPRAY  LONGLY TOWARD ANGULAR PASTS AND STORIES TOO-LONG-KNOWN NO LONGER A SHEER BLOUSE IN A FOREIGN PLACE WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER YOUR FACE SO LONG AS SHORTLY YOU GRAZE THE TEAT OF HEAT OR FORLORNLY AWAIT THE MOMENT OF JUST REALLY BEING TRUE TO YOURSELF. 

1. 

I once saw a woman doing Contact Improv, dancing, her young son like a scarf the way they wore each other. He would lay in the back behind the curtain, munching on pretzels, and rice cakes, regarding his iPad like a toy only vaguely alive––flowing forth with more curiosity than he can even yet call his. 

A rise and fall tinged with emotion so total so as to no longer appear at all.

2. 

“Observe your behavior,” I tell myself.

3. 

At the end of the day we are all 27-year-old bags meticulously packed––with the kind of cantankerous candor acquired only with over time. 

4.

I see my mom in an unhappy relationship with 

my father

I think about my career and feel only

ambiguous

5. 

An overflowing ashtray that is also a jar begs of you impossible things. As heat continues pointing that so-called-singular direction. “You’re killing yourself.”  ––Did you say kindling? Because we do need more of that; fuck.

6. 

What is everyone always screaming about. Why is it always? What.

7. 

Don’t be afraid of anyone. Don’t dump your trash onto the sidewalk. Bad fucking karma.

8.

I thought I was on a path to true higher communication. I was trying to get hired by true communication. I needed a job bad. 

Turns out it was actually only the path to communication that excites heat. “To change,” I would think. No page was ever empty enough for me then. 

I grew to want the slow kind, the deliberate burn coating the inside of your palm. Not everyone has courage like the hands of a The City. I want everything ours to be mine too and hence-thus you and me could be I and you and me and you could be this and this. If we could bare this minimum, then I would cease my feckless decorating––opt instead for a well-counseled non sequitur meandering without loss of heat.

9.

SCIENCE IS OFTE

N TRUE

A play that I write

A play that I write

To begin I Googled the definition of "play"

And I am inspired already

From Change Come Other People

1.

I learned Tai Chi from an old Chinese man today. He taught me in a peeling room in the East Village to open my knee at a 45º angle and send energy with constant intention through my wrist and into his. We made figure eights for several minutes, our hands, fingers, and wrists spooling time back and forth in a post-linguistic, post-cultural, (honestly postmodern) exchange. Here’s a poem about that word which also peers back at my question, “How can I have nothing in my dance?” as an inquiry into the intra-conscious experience of non-attachment made possible through the miracle of my body. 

2.

ex- = out of, from; utterly; thoroughly

3.

From change moved an impossible era...

As I try to write a poem about anything other than myself I look around my room. I am noticed by empty tobacco pouch, instant ice pack, dust sweeper, crossbody bag filled with almond dust, dirty socks, used cotton pad, uncapped Aquaphor mini-tube, drying towel, college tote bag, orange-and-grey hype beast jacket, wires, piles of notebooks, a roll of toe tape with a toe spacer propped in the middle. I feel unsure of how to write this poem. I find it easier to search for a place to live. 

4.

Exchange 

ex =

out; outside of."expand"
up and away; upward."extol"
thoroughly."excruciate"
removal or release."excommunicate"
forming verbs expressing inducement of a state."exasperate"
forming nouns (from titles of office, status, etc.) expressing a former state."ex-husband"

5.

poem:

Outside of change fastens inward a lengthy apology
For hurting you that one time I wish to know my mind

I sweat and I sweat and I quickly reddening want more
I peel and I peel and I ever suffering put forth:

I can do impossible things

Like be outside of change 

I have a painful body which requires and forfeits daily
Its changing is all that I have

You wish to reveal the conditions
Find nothing where you thought would be

Poem for Performers

1.

I wonder every day about you. I let you into my precious unpaid dream time––twice. Irreplicable unplaceable implacable untraceable: we send each other over the edge. 

        You make my edges important 

        You give them their definition

        Like language you give me use

        Like meaning you live in my usage

        For the love of god

        You

2.

Improvise your hope aboard secret escape vehicle. Steal your way home. Lie tomorrow. View me truly, laid flat-first in my own dirt. Get on the train reaching for magic like a bully in bed––and be your tormentee laying on a pillowy breath. 

3.

The conversation you have today will not be the conversation you hear tomorrow. 

4.

Don't be mad at your landlord; you live in his house. He lives in our house. They pay my rent. 

5.

Together you lift my eyes toward light-filled globes meandering timelessly on gravity's unresearched stage. We're sold out but come anyway, we'll get everyone in.