The Viewing

His nose hadn’t been that big. His face had been round,
not sallow and oval. His hands alone were recognizable;
their rough strength had known the way of the soil

And also the Gardener’s secret: casement broken,
the seed is the sapling is the tree is the blossom is the apple
is a glass of spiced cider or Nana’s last jar of preserves.

Of these nothing is lost but, it’s not understood.
We step forward, unsure, are unconvinced by the makeup.
Of the two, death is the greater deceit.

the thirteenth

I have a token in my pocket worth three mints or three packets of hi-c in the psychiatric ward of Grady Hospital. Five days ago that building was just part of the skyline to me. Atlanta keeps offering up new views. I'll only thank it for the privilege if it keeps my friend off the streets.

I've always believed, stubbornly, that my love could change things - that it's strong enough, pure enough. I must be either extremely naive, egotistical, or weak.

shutters on the fifth floor

Out the window a man sits on the roof of a tall building in downtown Atlanta. He smokes a cigarette, fidgets, stands up, puts his hands in his pockets, sits back down again. A MARTA train slides past in the distance. Grady Hospital. Clouds in the sky. He looks around.

What does the heart see?
What does it tell itself?

It paces. Shifts its weight, listlessly, from one foot to the other. Believes itself alone.

graphite or charcoal

The need to vent my depression is asserting itself.

Don't hate me because I'm avoiding.
Two and half cups of coffee later: a blank page and I need to pee.

I'm frustrated. I want to create something beautiful but it's just not in me. Bills are in me. The past is in me. The question-mark future. I've spent the last few days looking and am dissatisfied. I've tried to become fascinated by the weather, by my lower lip, tendrils of hair, the circles and triangles of the face, but it's no use; I'm tired of looking. What I really want is to be touched. Rendered. Kissed by graphite or charcoal (lightly then heavily). The closest I get are black smears where I unconsciously swept hair away from my face or set my palm down on a self-portrait. I thought drawing would fulfill some tactile need of mine. Surprise! It's created one instead.

memories

come and go on the air. smell of oyster water or jasmine. ripen and rot. are fluid and sometimes dissolvable. broken down with the body. grown from the mind as weeds, as holly and oak. are cut down and recycled. shaved off. swept away or let go of. a ring tost into the ocean. a handkerchief. are crippling. chronic. meaningless and undesirable. are electric. holographic. stacks of yellowed newspapers and teacup collections. are alcoholic. addictive. fuel burnt for warmth, for knowledge. for regret. are movies we've seen before and know the ending to. cast us as heroes, villains, scapegoats, revolutionaries, romanticists, whores, great and poor musicians. wear khakis and have hair like your mother. reek of mothballs. of Chanel #1. are dizzying. explosive and unexpected as land-mines. attach as appendages. obstructions. apply makeup before going out. allow the fingers to remember where second position is on the cello and all ten digits of my first love's phone number.

being laughed at

Happiness is being laughed at by your instructor because you showed up at 6:00 a.m. instead of 6:00 p.m. to practice your cello in the garden. Happiness is knowing that you chose to come earlier because it was harder.

for my cousin, Sarah

Remember the time we, stumbling, brought out Nana's 70th birthday cake (on fire) drunk on a cocktail of disgusting liquors we stole from the adults? Laughed devilishly for hours on the beach because Ann's spoon broke off in our pint of Ben & Jerry's? Our conspiracy tree and all the plans we hatched there? The time in St. Paul when I fell off the front steps (we were dancing and lip-syncing to Billy Joel's "We didn't start the fire", if that wasn't funny enough)? Skipping stones on Lake Seneca? Your curry dinner in New York. Case of You on guitar. Dakota told me my fortune that night while your mother ran her fingers through Ann's hair. We both had the same cursed front teeth. Tried our hands at cello. Blistered our feet on the bottom of Nana's swimming pool year after year. Our laugh is the same even. I recorded myself laughing on accident the other day. It reminded me of you. Our donkey gasps and witch's cackle. Just thinking about it makes me smile.

relief

I must submit myself to living. I've been struggling against it and nothing could be clearer; I'm losing. I question too much, feel too much. just give me a hammer and a nail. some wood. a sleeve that has neither snot nor blood on it. maybe sweat. you can lose yourself in work or find yourself. either of these would mean relief right now.

not the peacock I think I am

I've been lacking Humility lately. It's no wonder my drawings are falling short, my prayer as well. Paul's looking for artwork that poses more questions than it answers; art that looks and listens, keeps its own mouth shut, leaves its images unsolved, searches for a constant despite the wiseacreing of the eyes. An admission of ignorance is, perhaps, simply more honest. Lines that move (on paper) are beautiful in their honesty. They resist self-satisfaction, the fixedness of dogmatism and the false certainty of subjective perspective. I used to take off all my jewelry before entering Khanegah. I wouldn't wear makeup there either. I didn't want adornment. I wanted to come as a babe would come, naked and uncontrived. The more you try to hide your ignorance, the more naked you feel revealed. I keep thinking I can draw my own face and am consistently embarrassed with the results. Is it possible something I've seen/studied almost every day of my life could still hold its mysteries? Yes, of course.

for touching:

I'm a prickle pear. a pineapple. a caterpillar with feelers all extended. I feel everything and you can't stop me. abuse me if you must but feeling I keep on. the fingers of my heart open to receive. chest bleeding. is heaving. my stomach hurts like hell. all is well and I hurt. all is well and I keep keeping. all is well.

touching: your mouth opened. your heart and nothing broke that wasn't built to break. let us not be afraid. release our untouchables. to touch each other. even though they walk our streets disguised as fears. masquerade as our fathers. wreak havoc. set us to spinning. to building. to hiding.

slippers

People say that living with others involves a lot of compromise. I learned recently that living with myself involves compromise too. There's a certain amount of self-acceptance I haven't allowed myself to engage in until now. my faults my particular challenges I've tried to gloss over with faith. I've been looking at faith as a panacea for all my other problems Maybe it's not maybe these have to work themselves out in their own particular spheres of existence. the editor. the analyst. the emotional girl-child the crone my ticking brain and its corresponding muscles and joints. wedges of flesh. bones in dresses and highest heels

all these
the shoes I fill

maybe one day I'll glance down and see only one pair. they'll be encrusted with rubies. that'll be the day I go home.

living itself is a compromise

Wet the page.

My pen lifted its leg. I trail behind it with a zip-lock and a spatula. My mouth really is the worst though (with my brain as its accomplice). I'm catching it all the time. It opens and turds come out, weightless and floating, like smoke stacks - except they don't disappear. I'll step in one down the road some other year and try not to curse another one out. And they're contagious too. As contagious, in fact, as yawns. It's a turd epidemic passing from one mouth to the next, especially in large groups.

It doesn't seem right that the world should go on.

My fingernails continue to grow.
Books, t-shirts, CDs are settling into
different shelves, oblivious.
To them it was a move like any other.

When disaster strikes
(the eruption of Mount Vesuvius)
it doesn’t seem right that the world go on-

the expression on the face of our hearts should remain
unchanged from the moment it happened,
our hands still busy with the washing of the day.

thankfulness.

fullness of Love that makes me wonder how I could continue another moment. how my day to day life could survive the explosion. the heat. the gravity. how one could experience divine providence, even for a moment, and ever resume the task of living. pick up a pen or let words pass, any of them. makes you regret the moment it does. presses tears from the eyes. from your gut strings and heart pearls. from the part of you that beats and is still living. to remind you you're living. the string left unbroken. the possibility of arriving still intact.

burrow

Our final critique for Drawing I was yesterday. It went well, but one thing bothered me. One of my classmates made a video for his final project. In it, he had a stuffed bunny sitting in the road. Obvious, right? He's going to have it run over and then that's going to be his statement about innocence lost, or the environment, whatever. You see that image and you know the bunny's going to get it. I protested. The basis of my disagreement was that the image was too predictable, but this was only part of it. He told me later that he had a problem getting the shot because everyone drove around it. That's what gets me. That's what made it feel so wrong. People lie, cheat, steal etc. All of us. All the time. Thousands. But nobody runs over stuffed bunnies.

bitch

I kept the door open last night while I worked on my art project. I caught the attention of a stray when I first came in. I, on the balcony, she on the ground. We considered each other. It's always been fascinating to me how animals know to look you in the eye. After inching herself closer, she finally came to my door. I gave her scraps of chicken. She ate and dozed in the doorway. I've felt a connection to strays. The black bitch of Mason Avenue, her used-up tits hanging grotesquely. The skinny dog I left on the shores of Valdivia. And this cat. We have an understanding - them and me. I know how not to scare them, myself being fearful.

You're either with me, or you're a poo stain.

sentences

We pay for our words. Once uttered, they live forever; a string of vibrations from my mouth, my tongue, my teeth, my lips, which extend infinitely throughout space. For as many of these as I regret (those dark tapestries of misshapen syllables knotted, inextricably, by time and pain), there are those whose delicacy and light originated from the kindest, most sincere node of my black heart. And as those silvery words (of love) circle and snake their way across the globe, I hope they find you again, and again, and yet again - even if I don't.

how to disappear completely

What the heat has to teach my body - its broken water mains and stagnant pools - with enough heat you could dry up either of these. With fire.

Thanks to a recent lack of air conditioning, I've begun to come to terms with my sweat. I would rhapsodize about why sweat is beautiful; how it's one out of thousands of ways the oceans we contain manifests itself, how we sweat in the midst of pain, of joyfulness, of lust,

but I'm mostly interested in its application to problems. When we say we have to "work out" a problem, we usually mean we're going to think it through. Perhaps some solutions literally require working out - work that is evident only as it appears in beads on the upper lip or forehead.

With this thought in mind, I enjoin myself and others to begin again the hardest work. (I don't have to tell you what it is because you know.)

A humble offering of our water and salt to the fire of recognition, maybe the god of us water-creatures will notice and take pity.

sweat is sexy

I've decided, despite the circumstances or perhaps because of them, that sitting at a desk in only my underwear and a white t-shirt, smoking a cigarette (while writing and sweating over writing) is, in fact, quite sexy.

a clear conscience is a soft pillow

Sombebody give me a home so I can find sleep again.

I'm drinking herbal tea that's supposed to induce sleepiness when a shot of whiskey is what I really need. A cure for my sobriety, for worry and conscience.

If I had any poetry I'd write one about us and about how I've let us down. I'd lend some significance to my nearsightedness and this mug of luke-warm tea. I could craft it. I could make it come together if only there were sense to it, to me, but there isn't. These skinny sentences are, therefore, all you're going to get.

raised from the dirt

Today I ate sugar snap peas and raspberries while standing around, surveying an old man's garden. His spread was admirable. His gifts of zucchini and home-fermented cider, most welcome. (I didn't actually realize zucchini was fuzzy until today. When you buy it in the grocery store it's usually been waxed.) What I mean to say is I want to become a gardener. The process of planting something intentionally, nurturing it, disciplining it, then eating from it once it's reached fruition is special. We all know how to reap. It's what we do. But to know how to plant something with some purpose. To know what it is, what it will be, what care it requires, what tenderness and attentiveness, what love. That's special. I've decided. He'll catch me berry-picking one morning, and that's when my tutelage will begin.

I like listening to the elderly. They have a completely unique perspective on things. They know themselves better than most of us and have fewer qualms with it. Interesting when time is taken out of the equation. Children and the elderly have this in common. One isn't aware of this thing called "future", the other is forced to accept life without it. Listening is so important. But speaking and acting is too. If there's any immediate lesson to be had in the presence of old ones it's that life is short. Too short for all this bullshit we engage in from day to day. Too short for anything but absolute honesty. Too short to lose focus on what's truly meaningful and important in our lives. Too short not to say what needs to be said.

I went with Matt to visit his Grandmother tonight. His Grandfather, her husband for 60 years, died earlier this evening. He had Alzheimer's, which is what my Grandmother died of. It made me remember. Grandpa, with his rough German accent walking us through his three-tiered garden. Playing cards with them both. He used to call her an old cow. These were the good times for them - old age, retirement, but there were worse ones. My father and his five siblings were in and out of orphanages when they were young because Carl and Daisy couldn't get along. The only white children on an Indian reservation in New York, they were called the "dirty Wigger children" because after working all day on the family farm the wash never got done. My uncle, the middle brother, the great artist, committed suicide. The rest are scattered across the U.S.

That's not what I thought about tonight, however. I thought about how, when my Grandmother was finally hospitalized and could neither talk nor recognize people, my Grandfather stood by her, night and day, and cared for her with surmount tenderness. More tenderness perhaps than he had even showed his garden. Later, when I was going through her belongings I found a book she kept of love signs. On the cover it had an image of a lion and a lamb. She had written her name next to the lamb, and my Grandfather's beside the lion. What moved her to do this I'll never know, but it touched me. Although she and I never got to have any "girl-talk", I always felt this offered some small insight into her relationship, or how she thought of it at least.

I come from hard-working people on one side. Farming people. Earthy people. People who toiled and loved, both with their hands. My Dad is embarrassed to talk about it. It's obviously nothing to be ashamed of, but he carries it. I guess your childhood isn't the easiest thing to discard.

P.S. I've decided I would be both. I don't think being a superhero or a villain is a mutually exclusive gig. In fact, to do it right, I think you have to be both.

why I love Dallas

I was invited to play cello for a televised Sufi celebration in Dallas a few years ago. Play and also recite a Hazrat Pir poem in front of about 500 people. I was so nervous when I got off the plane I had to sit down (and almost vomited). It was an incredible honor.

The night of the performance was probably the best in my life. The spoken word was flawless, or at least it felt that way. And my two cello pieces - some of the best playing I've done. My instructor was there, present with me throughout the experience. I met his wife, his children. I felt carried throughout the night by an unseen force. What needed to happen did without my interference. I had a purpose that I filled and filled well. I even mingled during the reception. I practiced my Farsi. I floated.

That was when it happened. I was standing in line to get more food when a fit of laughter erupted from me. I couldn't stop it and didn't want to. At that moment it struck me how unbearably lucky I was to be there - how unexpected, how beautiful, how brilliant the whole thing was. I was so thankful I didn't even try to hold onto it - any longer than I was supposed to.

That's what love is meant to feel like. Unfathomable joy. Joy you didn't even know to ask for, because you couldn't imagine its existence.

Joy that can't help but express itself in rapturous giggles, even though in doing so it draws stares.

the lonely bones

The lonely bones are what's left over. After we've finished this dish. Some was pleasant when it mattered and some was not. But all was spent towards this aim - the filling of our endless stomachs and sometimes even our hearts. We're old as saints. Young as prophets. We're children at tea time, sipping from empty cups; mother's best china. How long can we keep up this game? And will our plates ever be filled again?

yes

The story of Andy and I is a fun one to tell. In it's retelling, I'm reminded how my life has been riddled with signs. And how, in some ways, I've never been left without internal guidance. It would also serve as the perfect segue between my relationship with David, and what followed. But I'm not going to tell it. Not right now anyway.

Right now I'm interested in one of two or three incidents. This first, roughly five years ago, happened in my studio apartment in Decatur. This time, I was crying because I felt I'd done nothing to deserve all the goodness in my life. I felt blessed but unworthy. Do I deserve it? He didn't say anything but wrote one word on a piece of paper, ripped it out of his journal, and gave it to me. I take that word with me wherever I go. It's become a mantra whose repetition I hope resonates throughout my life. Yes was the word he gave to me because I couldn't give it to myself. Yes - a mighty word. A Godly word. A word of absolute affirmation and acceptance. A word closer to love than love itself.

on a bus in Chile

Pet Your Confusion

You set bowls of milk out as offering.
It eats, then curls up in your chest.

Every moment I spent in Chile was stolen. Stolen from a life I was trying to hold onto at home. A non-life, really, as the only thing that was missing from it was my self. David, my boyfriend at the time, basically forbade me from going. His jealousy, fully manifesting itself in our relationship at that point, punctured any happiness I had once felt and kept him in a state of suspicion. He had abandoned himself to his suspicion, actually. Our evening phone calls (they were really interrogations) while I was in Chile left me crumpled, wet, and ruined.

Ruined, but free. There's something liberating about being in a different hemisphere from the source of your pain and self-loathing. Especially when you've been swept from the throws of Winter into beautiful, Chilean Spring. Those ten short days abroad were some of the best of my life. I was mopey and alone. I separated myself from the group every chance I got. I picked flowers and prompted a spontaneous daisy picnic. I was so alienated that any openness or happiness I experienced, was an unexpected gift. Was an experience of Grace. Chile was indescribably beautiful and our cello choir concerts, intense.

There was the concert in the rose garden in Santiago, with white banners streaming. The concert in the ruins of Mora(?) Island, where I had those amazing cherry pastries (there were cherry orchards on the island), saw the school-house and its flowers, and got rained on. The stray mutt I left on the banks whose fate was mine, the black volcanic sand of the beach, and our 18 cellos bobbing up and down in dingy boats across the water - some bizarre procession. Eighteen casualties - our instruments in their black caskets.

There was also the concert in the Catholic church in Valdivia, which was magical. We made sacred music there. Music that was careful not to break the silence too completely. And then there was the unforgettable bus ride along the shores of Valparaiso. Window open, knees wedged between my seat and the one in front of me, hair flying, blue skies, water that stretched from rock to horizon.

Moments like those make you beg whatever higher power exists to kill you, right then and there, because it doesn't get better.

I've experienced other moments of joy like that, and gratitude, when my heart asked to lift itself clear of my chest and join itself with whatever lies beyond.

what would break

Our bodies are dark with mystery. Cells, synapses, heart palpitations, electricity, water, inhalation and exhalation, pores, nerve endings, bones, plasma, veins, etc. Everything in our body works in perfect harmony with itself. Perfect balance and unity. All this without our knowing it.

So what would break if we were to open the munitions warehouse in our hearts (the one where we record everyone else's faults) and let it all go? Who would get hurt? Like America, we feel more comfortable from behind a loaded gun.

the science of uncovery

We work at being seen - forging exteriors that mirror an image we have of ourselves, our hopes and desires. We hide the rest. The rest is what I'm interested in. The rest is what makes Psychology so intriguing, and spirituality, and physics. It is also what renders our approach to modern science so utterly inadequate.

24-Hour Diner

I am the old waitress who suffered a stroke and limps and
slurs her speech, the dead bug in my glass and Matthew sitting
across from me. I am also the jukebox, whose songs I've resigned myself to -
as I'm resigned to keeping full that cabinet, my heart,
resigned to death, resigned to the off-beat thumping of fate.
Old fate, dragging her disconnected happiness behind her - working
hard, banging our hearts around, waiting for a tip.

entertainment

I love breaking whatever social contract binds us to this boring, scripted fucking dialogue.