to contain rage.
learning seems eternal.
scream flames taller than this house.
grow claws to tear down innocent bystander telephone poles.
uproot fire hydrants.
scream monuments into space.
bloody one's knuckles against asphalt
and ferociously lick it up until half the hand is gone.
bite down hard enough to shatter every tooth.
pull yards of hair up by the root.
fall into fetal position,
semi-circle of helplessness.
cry until the ducts stop working.
lap up one's own salt puddle with bared teeth.
a warning that this dog is not to be approached.
panting deep to warn the children away.
feel the rage consume the belly.
vomit the bile of 28 years.
ultimately, when the endorphins stop blasting
you will fall into yourself.
collapse.
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Thursday, September 2, 2010
and then again
nightmares on the marble
in front of the haunted building.
this is the entry way
with mini revolvers
and federal agents.
so many spirits on the first floor
seeking solace in others' memory.
if we count our dead and otherwise departed
we are left with an abundance of empty spaces
we fill only with spirit in dreams.
i recount my foresight and second guess
why i didn't think to warn.
from across town,
almost two hours away,
his fear and adrenaline woke me up.
i jolted into 90 degree upright position
covered in night sweat and seeing.
reached for the crystals at my bedside
they trembled and howled and pierced my heart.
their message was deafening
but i couldn't understand it.
so now again.
i light a candle in the name of two kids
whose souls intertwined and pain feeds the other.
the burden of intuition and premonition and seeing.
sometimes i wish it hadn't been me.
had i been born with less magic
i could suffer tragedy in tears and loss.
instead knowing that i knew
makes me make magic
with all of my heart.
i fall asleep in spite of myself,
because of my hope strain.
i gave him all of me to make it.
fear that all of me is not enough.
and then again i wake up.
i am still on the steps
or the bed
or the sunshine
or my guardian moon.
like an appliance i plug back in.
charge myself with elements and intention.
i am going to be alright.
and that is what ultimately
feels like my demise.
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in front of the haunted building.
this is the entry way
with mini revolvers
and federal agents.
so many spirits on the first floor
seeking solace in others' memory.
if we count our dead and otherwise departed
we are left with an abundance of empty spaces
we fill only with spirit in dreams.
i recount my foresight and second guess
why i didn't think to warn.
from across town,
almost two hours away,
his fear and adrenaline woke me up.
i jolted into 90 degree upright position
covered in night sweat and seeing.
reached for the crystals at my bedside
they trembled and howled and pierced my heart.
their message was deafening
but i couldn't understand it.
so now again.
i light a candle in the name of two kids
whose souls intertwined and pain feeds the other.
the burden of intuition and premonition and seeing.
sometimes i wish it hadn't been me.
had i been born with less magic
i could suffer tragedy in tears and loss.
instead knowing that i knew
makes me make magic
with all of my heart.
i fall asleep in spite of myself,
because of my hope strain.
i gave him all of me to make it.
fear that all of me is not enough.
and then again i wake up.
i am still on the steps
or the bed
or the sunshine
or my guardian moon.
like an appliance i plug back in.
charge myself with elements and intention.
i am going to be alright.
and that is what ultimately
feels like my demise.
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Monday, August 9, 2010
returning
i retreated to the harlem river. it smells like metal, tastes sour on the tongue, feels silky on the skin. leaves a film like memories you can't wash off with lava soap. emulsification is null and void. i am harlem river dripping, iridescent trail that sticks uphill. i am in the lots and spaces between project buildings, i am putrid funk of dredging, i am most familiar to myself in this dingy wash. i am coming back home.
the air is still stagnant. it is beginning to smell. i can smell it over my dirty river opalescence. something needs to move. stir. change.
i cannot command it to. not yet. my thumbs tucked between pointer and middle fingers, hoping/dreaming. in despair i know that there is no turning time back. only these moments when all is still. and i want to rearrange, but rearrange what? rearrange who? it will not undo death or addictions or broken hearts or learned outlooks, or tangible sorrow.
Slow incline in beaming sun- my skin reddens in places: the tip of my nose, the rounded peaks of my cheekbones, the backs of my calves. i move slowly, i begin to recharge. i am home. light beams from my pores. i glisten. i shine despite my conviction. there is something magnetic here. it draws me in ways i cannot control. pulls me back to knees pressed into chest, pulls me back to toes in mouth completing circuit, pulls me back to before i became conscious of myself. myself in relation to this. myself as different. the gift/curse dichotomy. the static here makes my ears ache. my fingernails brittle. despite my conviction it also makes me glow, fuels me. holy ground at times. it's where i plug in. where i can sense the subtlest movement; in touch with the earth shift. fire ignites in my belly. we want everything warm warm warm. in the heat of summer and nothing moving i hope to make it warm again. and if i didn't know any better, i'd think everything is suspended in the humidity's thickness.
painful source of origin with your bloody noses, resold food stamps, canned dinners, and the sting of under-harnessed energy. i lay at the foot of the building. wondering whether the 5th floor walk up will still creak in the same places. my face is pressed into the cement steps. i stare at the abandoned milk crates, card table and dominos. the lights flicker from green to yellow to red. i feel the sparks fly off my fingertips. release in spasms in my thighs. the reflex action of letting go. the kind of movement that even i cannot command. i have never felt more natural. it's as if i'd bloomed from concrete. i am wildflower in street cracks. i am home.
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the air is still stagnant. it is beginning to smell. i can smell it over my dirty river opalescence. something needs to move. stir. change.
i cannot command it to. not yet. my thumbs tucked between pointer and middle fingers, hoping/dreaming. in despair i know that there is no turning time back. only these moments when all is still. and i want to rearrange, but rearrange what? rearrange who? it will not undo death or addictions or broken hearts or learned outlooks, or tangible sorrow.
Slow incline in beaming sun- my skin reddens in places: the tip of my nose, the rounded peaks of my cheekbones, the backs of my calves. i move slowly, i begin to recharge. i am home. light beams from my pores. i glisten. i shine despite my conviction. there is something magnetic here. it draws me in ways i cannot control. pulls me back to knees pressed into chest, pulls me back to toes in mouth completing circuit, pulls me back to before i became conscious of myself. myself in relation to this. myself as different. the gift/curse dichotomy. the static here makes my ears ache. my fingernails brittle. despite my conviction it also makes me glow, fuels me. holy ground at times. it's where i plug in. where i can sense the subtlest movement; in touch with the earth shift. fire ignites in my belly. we want everything warm warm warm. in the heat of summer and nothing moving i hope to make it warm again. and if i didn't know any better, i'd think everything is suspended in the humidity's thickness.
painful source of origin with your bloody noses, resold food stamps, canned dinners, and the sting of under-harnessed energy. i lay at the foot of the building. wondering whether the 5th floor walk up will still creak in the same places. my face is pressed into the cement steps. i stare at the abandoned milk crates, card table and dominos. the lights flicker from green to yellow to red. i feel the sparks fly off my fingertips. release in spasms in my thighs. the reflex action of letting go. the kind of movement that even i cannot command. i have never felt more natural. it's as if i'd bloomed from concrete. i am wildflower in street cracks. i am home.
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Tuesday, December 8, 2009
poem for lost one
i couldn't find you.
so i painted myself
all over the underneath of this city.
trying to make myself
as visible as possible
in this constant night.
i drew a map
of the old D train line
harlem in the mid 90s
the parks around the edges of the city
the shores around the boroughs
hustle spot storefronts
train tracks we jumped in and walked around on
empty golf courses
coney island boardwalk at night
lower east side of psychedelic and opiate years
the brooklyn attic where you let it all go
telling time through skylight
and idealism
pool halls and unwatched movies of young lust
the church where you cried your last hyperventilating goodbye
to your best friend in the bronx
hoping for some sort of comfort
bronx of murals and the strip beneath the 4 train
reservoirs cemeteries and desolate parks
the old bronx of crackhouse nightmares
and reality
the breeziest point off the hudson
promise of the river valley greens and golds in october
city greys and dusty steel of winter
cold and crisp
topography/class dichotomy.
i tried to chart the course back to me.
there is paint
caked
in the cracks in my fingertips
everything smells of yesteryear
sometimes
i smell like you, when i found you
outside a borrowed house
in the midwest one morning,
laying on a porch swing
by yourself,
on the first sunny day of the season.
counting the pick up trucks,
droplets of color still in your hair
rings around your eyes
telling age like trees,
your arms bare and glistening
and a silent phone by your side.
you smelled like cut grass, under-eating,
and a pack of cigarettes smoked in deep regret.
so i wonder
when you will find your way back to me.
for now i wish to stop
crawling into tunnels with
flashlight, high hopes, and spray can in hand.
take the train home. take a long nap.
wake me up
when you've arrived.
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so i painted myself
all over the underneath of this city.
trying to make myself
as visible as possible
in this constant night.
i drew a map
of the old D train line
harlem in the mid 90s
the parks around the edges of the city
the shores around the boroughs
hustle spot storefronts
train tracks we jumped in and walked around on
empty golf courses
coney island boardwalk at night
lower east side of psychedelic and opiate years
the brooklyn attic where you let it all go
telling time through skylight
and idealism
pool halls and unwatched movies of young lust
the church where you cried your last hyperventilating goodbye
to your best friend in the bronx
hoping for some sort of comfort
bronx of murals and the strip beneath the 4 train
reservoirs cemeteries and desolate parks
the old bronx of crackhouse nightmares
and reality
the breeziest point off the hudson
promise of the river valley greens and golds in october
city greys and dusty steel of winter
cold and crisp
topography/class dichotomy.
i tried to chart the course back to me.
there is paint
caked
in the cracks in my fingertips
everything smells of yesteryear
sometimes
i smell like you, when i found you
outside a borrowed house
in the midwest one morning,
laying on a porch swing
by yourself,
on the first sunny day of the season.
counting the pick up trucks,
droplets of color still in your hair
rings around your eyes
telling age like trees,
your arms bare and glistening
and a silent phone by your side.
you smelled like cut grass, under-eating,
and a pack of cigarettes smoked in deep regret.
so i wonder
when you will find your way back to me.
for now i wish to stop
crawling into tunnels with
flashlight, high hopes, and spray can in hand.
take the train home. take a long nap.
wake me up
when you've arrived.
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Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Evening in an Empty City, Part Two
Every window is open.
I crawl down the side of the building, down the rickety fire escape which is forest green in its current incarnation. In the spots where the paint is chipping you can see that it was last bright orange, previously seafoam green, and before that a dashing shade of sepia. I wonder how these rusty joints can sustain my weight. This fire escape has had many lives, I wonder how it even holds itself up.
Every window is open. I indulge in the voyeurism afforded by this peculiar situation. The curtains, often improvised from flat sheets (sometimes bunchy fitted sheets), are all drawn. I stop at the first flight down, sit with my legs crossed, back facing the street, eyes pressed past the open window and let the scenes play out. I am a quiet theater-goer, latchkey kid in front of a TV at 4PM; my gaze is fixed. Sometimes, I see more with my eyes closed, particularly when there is a lot of interference. Today, I barely have to concentrate, all I have to do is sit still. The green-orange-green-sepia chips stick to my calves and the backs of my thighs where my shorts don't cover. My spotted legs distract me from the scene that is beginning to develop before me and I wish they were permanent spots on my skin; a marker of my difference, a physical admission that I am something more than human. I flick them off watch them float all the way to the sidewalk without interruption.
I refocus. Memorize the details of this room. The wooden bunk beds on the left side of the room, Full size mattress on the right, aged wooden floors, yellow walls, and emptiness. Apparitions. Four kids. Two boys and two girls, taking turns jumping off the top bunk onto the Full size bed. I look into their eyes. They are ghosts standing before me, huge brown eyes, brown skin that glistens salty summertime like mine. I begin to miss them, I hear them laugh and I start to cry. There is something temporal and fragile about them. It hurts me to look at them, I only sense tragedy. I want to scream, and I do. There is no one around to hear me, and I forget that these kids are just apparitions. They are not really there. I find myself feeling completely helpless, dig in the small bag slung across my back for whatever I can pull together. Four amulets, a piece of camphor, my water bottle. I crawl in the window, the ghost-kids go about their jumping uninterrupted and I rustle through their pointedly empty apartment looking for a clear glass. I fill it with water, drop in the camphor and put the cup behind the bedroom door. I walk up to each kid and they look at me, acknowledging me for the first time. I open my hand and one by one they grab an amulet, balled up tiny jet hands, and slip them onto their bracelets or chains, next to the identical amulets their grandmothers slipped on them at the exact time of their birth. No one says a word to me. I slide out of the window, turn my back to them, and continue to cry. In my heart I know that this is going to take a lot more than camphor and amulets. In my heart I know that they are the casualties of this world. These beautiful beaming children, born and raised by magic, their balled up fists holding small bunches of hope, handfuls of laughter, millions of atoms of imagination; will not be here to grow old. I miss them already.
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I crawl down the side of the building, down the rickety fire escape which is forest green in its current incarnation. In the spots where the paint is chipping you can see that it was last bright orange, previously seafoam green, and before that a dashing shade of sepia. I wonder how these rusty joints can sustain my weight. This fire escape has had many lives, I wonder how it even holds itself up.
Every window is open. I indulge in the voyeurism afforded by this peculiar situation. The curtains, often improvised from flat sheets (sometimes bunchy fitted sheets), are all drawn. I stop at the first flight down, sit with my legs crossed, back facing the street, eyes pressed past the open window and let the scenes play out. I am a quiet theater-goer, latchkey kid in front of a TV at 4PM; my gaze is fixed. Sometimes, I see more with my eyes closed, particularly when there is a lot of interference. Today, I barely have to concentrate, all I have to do is sit still. The green-orange-green-sepia chips stick to my calves and the backs of my thighs where my shorts don't cover. My spotted legs distract me from the scene that is beginning to develop before me and I wish they were permanent spots on my skin; a marker of my difference, a physical admission that I am something more than human. I flick them off watch them float all the way to the sidewalk without interruption.
I refocus. Memorize the details of this room. The wooden bunk beds on the left side of the room, Full size mattress on the right, aged wooden floors, yellow walls, and emptiness. Apparitions. Four kids. Two boys and two girls, taking turns jumping off the top bunk onto the Full size bed. I look into their eyes. They are ghosts standing before me, huge brown eyes, brown skin that glistens salty summertime like mine. I begin to miss them, I hear them laugh and I start to cry. There is something temporal and fragile about them. It hurts me to look at them, I only sense tragedy. I want to scream, and I do. There is no one around to hear me, and I forget that these kids are just apparitions. They are not really there. I find myself feeling completely helpless, dig in the small bag slung across my back for whatever I can pull together. Four amulets, a piece of camphor, my water bottle. I crawl in the window, the ghost-kids go about their jumping uninterrupted and I rustle through their pointedly empty apartment looking for a clear glass. I fill it with water, drop in the camphor and put the cup behind the bedroom door. I walk up to each kid and they look at me, acknowledging me for the first time. I open my hand and one by one they grab an amulet, balled up tiny jet hands, and slip them onto their bracelets or chains, next to the identical amulets their grandmothers slipped on them at the exact time of their birth. No one says a word to me. I slide out of the window, turn my back to them, and continue to cry. In my heart I know that this is going to take a lot more than camphor and amulets. In my heart I know that they are the casualties of this world. These beautiful beaming children, born and raised by magic, their balled up fists holding small bunches of hope, handfuls of laughter, millions of atoms of imagination; will not be here to grow old. I miss them already.
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Thursday, July 23, 2009
Evening in an Empty City, Part 1
Neon lights, stadiums, absurd rents, quickly multiplying health food stores, and developers who pop-up faster than Crown Fried Chicken in the 'hood fail to eliminate the grit and sweat of a New York long understood as underground. And in this hectic back and forth, there is little that cannot be seen. So many New Yorks, so much of the time. The rattling is enough to make anyone forget who they are. Forget to take a deep breath and climb to the top and just look out, absorb sights, breathe out.
So New York. Who are YOU? When you woke up this morning, where did you want to be?
I woke up this morning wanting to be by a shore. With industrial waste: cold metal and rock amalgams. Concrete ocean. New York and summer. The collision. It is hot as holy hell out there, and atop the city that considers itself to be atop the world, I take in the scenery. This seems to be the only thing that helps at times when my wires cross, visibility obscured; brainwaves caught in the electronic/wireless communication crossfire. Sometimes I feel like they might make me forget tomorrow. Tomorrow, a silent film; grainy and animated, always black and white, always urgent. I feel like tomorrows are on fire and my job is too keep them from charring. Today my tomorrow comes in clear as day, and it looks just like this moment.
On top of this building that sits on a giant hill in the Bronx everything is quiet. The quietest day this roof has ever seen. It is 95 degrees out tonight. It's the kind of night when people would usually crowd the street until it was morning again, when last century's Freestyle and Hip Hop should be blasting out of every window in a chorus of bass beats and Latinos with Spanglish love songs. There should be teenagers having sex, junkies shooting up, or a lone middle aged man tending to tomato plants on this roof right now. When I look down I should see open fire hydrants, boom boxes that made it through the sell everything you've got for a rock 1980s, bochincheras, dominos, Budweiser cans and Heineken bottles. All I see on one side of the building is the tree surrounded by this week's trash bags, waiting for the 6AM sanitation truck. The view on the other side, Greenstreets triangle whose green spotty lawn is brown because of the raging sunshine of the past week and the lack of rain of the past two months. And when I look down I see my favorite view, still as pristine as ever. The River and the Bridge and elevated train. I wait for the 1 train to pass by, but there have been none in the last half hour. A stretch even for this time of night. I look further up the route and notice a train sitting in between stations, completely still as long as I keep looking. I hear the hot breeze blow an empty plastic bag downhill and toward the river, an urban tumbleweed. I imagine it flowing North and West, up past Yonkers where the real suburbs are, with all their geology, leaf turning, and swimmable lakes. Tumblebag gets away to be quiet. Comes back for the dirty water and gravel grinding, train hissing and police sirens, leaky faucets and sweaty walls; or simply to get wrapped around the wheels of a Mack Truck, only to end up somewhere in Middle America, torn and melted to the interstate. Tonight I do not have to wonder about silence. It surrounds me. And for the first time I find myself completely alone. The thought of catastrophe or apocalypse never manage to cross my mind. I only think of time. I managed to stop it and rearrange everyone completely unconsciously.
It has happened once again.
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So New York. Who are YOU? When you woke up this morning, where did you want to be?
I woke up this morning wanting to be by a shore. With industrial waste: cold metal and rock amalgams. Concrete ocean. New York and summer. The collision. It is hot as holy hell out there, and atop the city that considers itself to be atop the world, I take in the scenery. This seems to be the only thing that helps at times when my wires cross, visibility obscured; brainwaves caught in the electronic/wireless communication crossfire. Sometimes I feel like they might make me forget tomorrow. Tomorrow, a silent film; grainy and animated, always black and white, always urgent. I feel like tomorrows are on fire and my job is too keep them from charring. Today my tomorrow comes in clear as day, and it looks just like this moment.
On top of this building that sits on a giant hill in the Bronx everything is quiet. The quietest day this roof has ever seen. It is 95 degrees out tonight. It's the kind of night when people would usually crowd the street until it was morning again, when last century's Freestyle and Hip Hop should be blasting out of every window in a chorus of bass beats and Latinos with Spanglish love songs. There should be teenagers having sex, junkies shooting up, or a lone middle aged man tending to tomato plants on this roof right now. When I look down I should see open fire hydrants, boom boxes that made it through the sell everything you've got for a rock 1980s, bochincheras, dominos, Budweiser cans and Heineken bottles. All I see on one side of the building is the tree surrounded by this week's trash bags, waiting for the 6AM sanitation truck. The view on the other side, Greenstreets triangle whose green spotty lawn is brown because of the raging sunshine of the past week and the lack of rain of the past two months. And when I look down I see my favorite view, still as pristine as ever. The River and the Bridge and elevated train. I wait for the 1 train to pass by, but there have been none in the last half hour. A stretch even for this time of night. I look further up the route and notice a train sitting in between stations, completely still as long as I keep looking. I hear the hot breeze blow an empty plastic bag downhill and toward the river, an urban tumbleweed. I imagine it flowing North and West, up past Yonkers where the real suburbs are, with all their geology, leaf turning, and swimmable lakes. Tumblebag gets away to be quiet. Comes back for the dirty water and gravel grinding, train hissing and police sirens, leaky faucets and sweaty walls; or simply to get wrapped around the wheels of a Mack Truck, only to end up somewhere in Middle America, torn and melted to the interstate. Tonight I do not have to wonder about silence. It surrounds me. And for the first time I find myself completely alone. The thought of catastrophe or apocalypse never manage to cross my mind. I only think of time. I managed to stop it and rearrange everyone completely unconsciously.
It has happened once again.
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