January 2012
3 posts
6-29-2009, the era of rounded digits
Dear Mildred Rodgers,
We were in bed one late, drunk night. I don’t know if you remember, but I asked if you would miss me, to which you relied, “In all honesty, no. It will be a great weight off my shoulders.” And I lay stunned, cowed, etc. Then you said, “What are you thihnking? Of course I will. You ask the strangest questions. Will you miss my cold...
Automatic redux
It was Independence Day when she brought to shore wreaths of wilted flowers from the bodies of men drowned in small, water-logged skiffs at sea. They’d celebrated too early and accepted gifts too early at sea, from the sea. Anemones, plankton, nudibranchs, and man-of-wars. She brought them between teeth like tiny arrows. She said, “Some said it was Independence Day and these dead...
The Cracked Egg
I’d heard from second-hand sources of this new development, or not a development, but a vow stemming from a memory. This latter interpretation was given over to me by numerous sources, all of which were not entirely credible, but by their sheer number seemed to indicate a general impression, a mood or feeling attached to such actions as manifest during non-developments, from promises made...
November 2011
1 post
Stolen name
In Pamuk’s Snow, he recounts how the difference between Love and the Agony of Waiting is slight indeed. Both cause you to throw yourself on the bed with pains emanating first from the stomach, then throughout the spine, and finally to the soul. Both make time stand still and (for those who Love and are Waiting) become the moribund mallet of the object. Both make quiet moments seem...
April 2010
1 post
greater things go to past
“you’re an ankle biter, though you’re collegiate.”
“but,” she said, “it’s strategic.”
“I know where that mighty tendon does lie
that takes a grown man down and makes him cry.”
“you think you know, but let’s not try
because in the end,
he knows the demand is more than the supply.”
dipped in the river styx...
January 2010
2 posts
I’ve been told that the world rotates and this is why the sun comes up and it makes sense rationally, with light blue diagrams and all, but in the end I think the sun moves and I’m here glued. I’ve been known to think this, feel this, in my bones about being stuck, pinned, moved about in a circumscribed sphere from time to time. but still, i try to guess.
I am moveable.
When he woke up in the...
December 2009
0 posts
that's it- that's this.
maybe he got it again, but only with the foolishness that might accompany it all, i best guess that best practice is not on a poster. you will find no powerpoint for the winning team, no, except for paltry attempts at escaping ends-meat and piece-meal scourging around, shit bagging and destroying what you seconds ago created and trying to no avail. a hooting quiet holler that goes underground...
November 2009
5 posts
On me, and yours, ah, more and more!
What do we care, my heart, for streams of blood
And fire, a thousand murders, endless screams
Of anger, sobs of hell, order destroyed in a flood
Of fire, as over all the North Wind streams:
Vengeance entire? Nothing! Oh, yes, entire!
Captains of Industry, Princes, perish! This we desire!
Power, Justice, History, fall! Down with the old!
You owe us that. Blood! Blood! And flames of...
concordant consummation
i called to him half asleep before realizing that it wasn’t there and hadn’t been but another was. and i had thought all along as the individual sounds rolled through the darkness and i held my hands clenched hard against my breast:
in the name of the shit, bag, and holy ghost:
“i de-claim you.”
rory thinks i’ve become less intelligent. he says, “you’ve lost some of your brain.”
i reply, “i do the same things, only i’ve lost some of my pretensions. some of my ‘scruples.’”
he says, “yeah.”
and maybe i’m biting my lip a bit but i don’t know where to go except circle some more like a vulture over roadkill.
backless chairs
it’s the feeling you get with low watt bulbs in a big room and everyone in smallish chairs with sunken bottoms. recliners where voice sinks with attendant body slack, arms look thinner, and the whole impression is one of fishing in a pot of soup for the last best beef slice.
all the time, he is saying, “why do i feel so weird here?” we’ve got empty bowls in our laps from...
October 2009
1 post
not worth it.
bound and wound until a slight bleeding occurs. the doctor said, yes it was fine only watch for discoloration around the pupils because then you know the faculty all-important is going in that sort of way that had the crowd of old shouting going going gone!
i will pull out. that old jacket and head myself over. i will eat a lobster. what wins me over is trust that i will do right. what...
August 2009
10 posts
the dream is over
he was a grownup child, his roomate said. he was in jail and as he was crossing the street to leave prison, he was hit by a car. i was returning a bag of cocaine and demurely i said to the roomate, well will you hold it for him as i only did a little and whenever he might return… and god knows we’ll have to settle some scores. it’s haunting me. i want to settle these scores...
give me my hums. i love ryan.
what i’d save in a fire: bike, ryan, rory, songs of love and hate, that one love letter about beer and empanadas, harlem jazz, pine pillow, and…maybe something stupid like my toothbrush or the only condom i own stashed between the boards of my nightstand.
i’d probably die trying to save the unlubed rubber, saying beneath teeth ‘i knew it. it knew it! why pretend? high...
what do you dream up when i tongue you down?
me: he’s got a great body.
tess: all the better to beat you with, my dear.
……….
me: can i look at pornography on your computer?
ryan: why? do you need some good stuff or you got it?
me: no, i’m good. can i masturbate on your pig?
ryan: it’s not mine. and yes.
………..
rory: and you have to wear a devil mask when you do it.
...
it ain't nothing if it ain't free
ryan: man…i never realized what a mess you are. i’m glad we’ve been hanging out so much because it makes me feel better about myself. i always just thought of you as a heartbreaker.
me: Me? well, yeah…i walk around in a sea of broken hearts, mine included.
ryan: do you think i’ll ever find a woman that appreciates that i have a 16mm print of Ancient...
strange how abruptly things fade away slow-like.
one strategy for resisting temptation is to think of the object inside of a picture frame.
not kidding. that’s what the scientists say.
if you listen, you her her the waves
“curves, tastes, and laughter. who could sleep next to that?”
i am a collector of sleep wavered lines.
begin production of the holy sop. keep your crosses clean. nail in different places. maintain the arms. beware the holy SOP. s.o.p.’s what lost the war.
Dear Taft,
I like your free throw. your legs are lovely in shorts. the shorter the shorts the better. I...
all well that goes, well.
house: check
job: check
clean clothes: negative
foinies in the poinies: check
bike: rear flat, but still faster than thou
car: check, but missing wipers
fake meat products: check, in abundance
prospects for free international travel: check
inspiration: check
motivation: check
pregnant: negative
begin that long, hard road out of degenerate hell. get well. summer’s...
July 2009
3 posts
at the last moment, the water swirled around me and my eyes popped open as i realized what he had just done. he swam away with a grin on his face, mouth in the water, lids little and glinty like a land predator taking his share of the ocean’s fare.
he spit out a stream of water staring me in the eye. thats what i saw before i ducked below the surface. there was the secret colony of...
girl town.
ryan: i will have to kick you out soon.
me: WHY!?
ryan: i don’t want her to think we are together.
me: anyone that has ever seen us wouldn’t think we’re together.
ryan: you know what’s sad? i think my ideal relationship is like ours. and that’s why i’ll never be happy.
at the end of the mechanical age →
May 2009
1 post
April 2009
1 post
May 2008
1 post
There are 18 nuclear warheads surrounding Tucson
Tumblr PreambleI wrote the following essay for my environmental history course. It is not particularly well done, but I found the topic thought provoking. Some reflection:What is social change? How do my biases affect what I am willing to consider progressive and what I would call retrogressive? When assessing the actions of others, do the results or intentions matter more? Is there such a...
April 2008
2 posts
Deluge
The Influence of Business on U.S. Policy towards Nicaragua, 1893-1909 “It has been Nicaragua’s fate, often an evil fate like that of a woman too lovely, to be desired by many nations.”[1] “The Americans were there to make money as quickly as possible and then leave.” -An American woman describing the situation in Bluefields, Nicaragua, 1907. [2] From the...
the cold war makes me hot: hist396a midterm essay
In the event that either of you (rory or ryan) find these long essays really obnoxious, I apologize. I suppose that, in a way, I feel as though these dry, academic inquiries are the mainstays of my creative life at the moment and so I post them to share and to remember. From 1946 to 1989, the United States consistently attempted to advance a global hegemonic position. Official justification for...
March 2008
2 posts
HIST 355: paper 2
Why the Buffalo Went Away The decimation of the buffalo populations in the region known as the American Great Plains in the mid-nineteenth century is a story typically treated as a simple relationship of a single cause resulting in a single effect. This story is one in which white settlers, moving westward with their wagons, their trains, and their capitalist (or enlightened)...
February 2008
2 posts
i read 100 pages, rory, and i like it. send the...
many fleshes all in a row. love lies in the corner, thrashing and a bit chaffed. future projections where i look back with wisdom and fondness at this tender time sheathed in make-shift maturity- yes yes. however trivial, however non-commital, crushes from afar pack a punch. yes yes. unintentional movements, and we’sa come to the blows. prince myshkin will have to wait awhile. i feel...
Pining
“Well, if you thrash me you won’t turn me away! Thrash me, that’s just how you’ll keep me! By thrashing me you’ll have put your seal on me…” -Lebedyev, in The Idiot by Dostoevsky The words that come out at first free, but then end up binding. As someone who has struggled with keeping a personal journal, I have often been subject to the paradox of...
January 2008
1 post
heap up your helpings
to inaugerate the blog addition, here’s the first thing i’ve written this semester for my environmental history course. boring, but this will mostly be used as a forum for writings other than personal ranting. Around 10 miles outside of Tucson on Interstate-10, state highway 83 cuts south towards the border town of Nogales, Arizona, passing the towns of Sonoita and Patagonia along...