My Weekend

(ego) / “I”

the web of tragedy invites you into
a web of appropriate signifiers.
the real is adequately corralled off
and your body doesn’t ache any more
when you think of your lack; it has been adequately incorporated.
and maybe you have one more symptom, one more twitch on rainy days -
I always thought “but not you -” and then this novelty, also, wears off, and with it my
familiar self.

Every Thing I touch is new and grotesque, like dead skin against new sheets
the cold of my feet touching a pool of rain water
the sun barely touching my shins on the porch. Everything is so close to being present, here with me. Ultimately I can’t pull anything near enough.
I am drenched in you and your lack, you have been rehabilitated here by virtue of this absence between us.
and I could tell you, “you owe me this, my attempt at preservation” -
but you don’t speak that language.

(And soon, neither will I.)

1. stills for le gai savoir (godard 1973) 3. le sinthome, lacan and art 4. got ariana reines' book 'save the world' in the mail, been crying over it a little

sore

Disordered affinities
or the awkward
letting in and out

transparent anecdotes
flung into the
center, webs of skin
and the familiar touch of
fingers electric and
eager.

i can only give so much
before I fade into the
golden background,
always eventually the too-absent
object a.

memories hit the light
at right angles;
illuminated silhouettes
accumulate at the cracked
base of your beer glass.

---
Feeling very weepy and alone today, possibly a little bit manic, unable to sit still. I've been dancing around for a while. I feel "dripping wet and limp" but I refuse to listen to Mount Eerie for the sake of my own mental wellness and instead dwell on Joanna Newsom and Brecht. This is probably my favourite song of the year so far. Basically the transition at 3.25 makes my heart hurt a lot. So fucking beautiful.



"And there is hesitation
And it always remains
Concerning you, me,
And the rest of the gang

And in our quiet hour
I feel I see everything
And am in love with the hook
Upon which everyone hangs

And I know you meant to show the extent
To which you gave a goddang
You ranged real hot and real cold,
But I'm sold.
I am home on the range

And I do hate to fold
Right here at the top of my game
When I've been trying with my whole heart and soul
To stay right here in the right lane

But it can make you feel over and old
Lord, you know it's a shame
When I only want for you to pull over
and hold me 'til I can't remember my own name"

Happy March. The horrors of February have subsided. This is going to be a big month for me. I have a lot of goals that will inevitably be hindered by a shitload of social and performance anxiety. I'm feeling down today, avoiding school, wanting to be alone.

Good news though: I have two poems published in the March Negative Suck. I just read the new stuff and holy shit, it is super good. I feel honoured to be included amongst such a great group of writers (including Lyn Lifshin - her poems are marvellous). Check it out HERE.

ps. Super happy about Canada winning gold in men's hockey. Fucking love Olympic hockey.

Mullen, Merlea-Ponty, new stuff to read in near future.

Reading Harryette Mullen's "Recycolpedia" and I'm really, really enjoying it. The first two sections, in Mullen's words, "are serial prose poems that use playful, punning, fragmented language to explore sexuality, femininity, and domesticity...[that] began as my response to Gertrude Stein's simple yet elusive poetic prose." Here are my favourite bits from "Trimmings:"

Opens up a little leg, some slender, high exposure. Splits a chic sheath, tight slit. Buy another peek experience, price is slashed. Where tart knife, scoring, minced a sluttish strut. Laughing splits the seams. Teeth in a gash, letting off steam.
-
Chaste, apprehended, collared and cuffed. Kept under wraps, as bridal veils visually haze precious, easily torn, gauzy romantic tissues. Thin threads lace into delicate, expensive fabrics woven and unwoven at night by patient spinsters with needles and scissors. Laced in, as fate would have it. Knots and tiniest holes. Surgical cutting and sewing. Peeking as usual. Skin under lace. A thread, a net effect, a web to sleep in. A white nightgown, girl, child, baby, laced and unlaced. A ruffle, a frill. A pale piece of something, almost made of air.
-
Thinking thought to be a body wearing language as clothing or language a body of thought which is a soul or body the clothing of a soul, she is veiled in silence. A veiled, unavailable body makes an available space.

That last bit reminds me (both as a response to/engagement with/argument against) of the section from Phenomenology of Perception (shock!) that I read on the subway this morning:

"It has always been observed that speech or gesture transfigure the body, but no more was said on the subject that that they develop or disclose another power, that of soul or thought. The fact was overlooked that, in order to express it, the body must in the last analysis become the thought or intention that it signifies for us. It is the body which points out, and which speaks. [ie. speech is not 'sourced' from thought, from the intellect removed from its lived-body; rather, speech is gestural, and is "wholly motility and wholy intelligence"]
-Merleau-Ponty from "The Body as Expression, and Speech" (part 1 of PoP)

And then my brain bounces in two different directions:
1) Black Mountain poetics seem very influenced/informed by phenomenology/Merleau-Ponty and I'd like to explore this more.
2) I can't wait to start reading feminist/queer responses to Merleau-Ponty. I'm anticipating problems but also great collaborations.

And finally...two forthcoming publications - flash-fiction in April decomP and 2 poems in March Negative Suck. I'm happy about this.

my body's all juiced up on whiskey and you,
you are across the city and there are no hands on the curve of your back
there is no language circling the fine hairs at the nape of your neck
your eyes are not on me.
my face is all torn up and I'm pulling at scars on the backs of my hands
hardening each day callouses are unavoidable
like children wandering aimlessly on streetcars
and coffee buzz paranoia in the foggy streets
empty like me.
we are lazy ecstatic together.
your body is so familiar under my mouth
that it becomes strange in frequency,
like a word swilling around at the back of my throat
becomes foreign when you realize these parts randomly collide,
when you realize [noun] can't curl into [verb] like Whitman's do.

I cannot suck I suck
out

that's where you are rooted in me,
dug in the back of my skull, warm and
perpetually wet.

memory paint by numbers

Yeah, yes, indeed.
Insert colour.
I just wrote this nostalgic and highly self-indulgent thing that I like inspired by this ridiculous piece of writing I found in one of my notebooks from five years ago. I happily roll around in memories, snug as shit.
Who gives a fuck. There is logic but its not clever.
My best people are visiting for Christmas. I'm excited.
I can't stop listening to "Make Love that Lasts" by Karl Blau, its such a fantastically happy song with snarky lyrics.
I'm super excited but I'm not sure what about.

1.
cucumber melon candles
jeans rolled mid-calf
peanut butter sandwiches and coke
masturbation
tosca goldfrapp jazzanova
you narrowly missed the paintbrush but I can deep throat

2.
nag champa and the annex in autumn
torn up cargos and propagandhi t-shirts
eggs benedict and pad thai
walks/locked up guitar/masturbation
elliott buckley loveless
i came in through the bathroom window/why did you break the glass

3.
cigarettes and soapy dishwater, weed
ill-fitting leather jackets
alfredo pasta and gravy
talk it out and fuck, gently
chili peppers pink floyd and other mediocrities
what the fuck did you do to the closet door

4.
semen and sweat
green plaid shirt and brown polyester
blt with red onion
yell insult throw fuck carpet burn
of montreal captain beefheart pavement
()

5.
blueberry muffins
hair. 90's. dad's leather jacket
rice and salmon
sullen silent treatment
neil young jeff tweedy the boss
leave, now, anticlimax, side 2

6.
sweat, skin, water
paint and scrubs
gnocchi with scissors
draw escape retract cold as fuck
tom waits nina simone
<

art is here.

sorry in advance.

November does good/bad things for me. Something shifts and my perspective is re-oriented. Consistently over the past five years my motivation to do school completely diminishes at this time. I have zero motivation to read philosophy or wrestle with issues in papers right now. And I don't really care about it either. Bad timing, though. Keeping things in perspective is good. Sometimes I realize that regardless of what I do to fuck up my life, even if I went on hiatus for a month or so, nothing would be ruined in the slightest, any damage due to dismissed papers, missed classes, forgotten phone calls can be undone pretty quickly. Recognizing the great insignificance of my life and problems is very liberating.
New lovers are so fun, everything dims except that. Just when I think I'm getting too jaded about people I meet someone who is easy to get along with, comfortable as fuck, and generally on my wavelength. So fucking refreshing. My inability to concentrate is probably a result of good vibe endorphins that make me feel like dancing or fucking at all times. I pretty much want sex all the time but the dancing is a new development. Its more like a pent up physical energy that usually expresses itself in one of those two outlets.
I really like this photographer, found via Garance. His site is here. His photos incite wanderlust and that wonderful feeling in the pit of my stomach in response to beautiful things found on screens, through headphones, behind windows or in my hands. I really like the latest post at Ani Smith's blog, I really like Ani Smith in general, I really like this photo of Alain Delon, I really like the new the Big Pink album. Here is a poem at read some words that I wrote a long time ago, I like it, although I think it is very simple, which is not necessarily a bad thing but I feel self-conscious.

I really really want to live in that house. Serious. When I was a kid I used to write super long stories and epic naive love stories about people living in abandoned houses on misty cliffs against water. I like reading those stories, I nod in agreement and approval of my former self. I drew portraits of the characters to go along with the narrative, and, later, I drew floorplans and detailed interiors of the houses I described. There are certain themes and images that still hit me in the same ways. Which makes me feel a sense of continuity of self, a uniformity- recognizing similarities between my 10-year-old self and now. I wonder why certain images stick with certain people. As in, what is the root of that influence, the tugging that happens when different people see different images with a particular vibe. I wonder if its connected to dreams at all. I wonder if its genetic . If I asked my sister, 'do you feel this way when you look at this' I wonder if she would understand at all. I know she wouldn't.

I love love love the texture and the colours in this photograph. Sometimes I save photos to my computer not because of content or composition but just because of the colour combinations.

Some shaky first drafts.

grimy first moves, bones drawn to bone
friction against skin shedding itself

cocoon bodies pushed out of their private darkness,
corrupting forms too material for
sighs that sway up into the overhead light
singed on bulbs like moths crowded in the dusty glass
lacking legs and single wings:
torn up asymmetrical shadows of sounds and failing bodies.

Artificial flame draws me into that rain-soaked space
between a rock and a hard place.
steady suction lubricated fingers slippery and
unsuccessful
mouth moves like an angry epileptic body open against
ambiguous mattress-stains and smoke-smell pillows
eyes roll back into skin pockets
flushed milky white, sheathed in moisture.
dirty flecks of yesterday's mascara
float like insects in the corners of your
sealed eyes.

tequila-skin and another man's sweat
darken your profile

thick full lips stained october-cloud-purple
sloppy wine mouth stains chin blood red
mop your face playfully, too self-conscious
the glass delicate and water-stained:
I'm fingering the stem and licking my lips.

shrink-wrapped body contained to
save energy, keep the freshness in and
tongue pieces fluorescent
like that space behind your ear,
each touch a more intense
invitation to infection

strange strong hands have a pulse
that echoes in organs, I can see the outline of your body
and its place in a sprawling soupy city
impervious to rain

---

The final act is an awkward look-away
dress rehearsal for the big
anti climax, poorly lit. And I can barely hear your voice on the phone.
the amputation swift, one fell swoop before the crash and
no one hears the tree fall in the forest, either.

Each lover a bandage placed over the scar left from the last
scab ripped off with the wrapping,
negligence sting-proof tingling wound that grows,
self-contained

Wiping your semen from my browned belly,
eyes sway with guilt like you've stabbed, not loved.
"you can't leave like that, sudden"
removal a shock too loud
the lid of a sealed jar popped open with force
a seal peeled off a closed envelope,
my contents exposed for consumption.
cover me.
panic pulls shame out of me
(but i need love, i need this)

before retreat you stuck it out,
Appease-her
curled back between swollen breasts
now wet with fluids that
smear and suck into belly buttons,
into the curved skin boat
of upper thigh.

you are hard and seamless
you never leak when held up to light.
turn me upside down,
test my contours.
taste me, I am leaking quietly.

Creeley hit me hard and my anxiety subsided like a cold wave pulling away from my body or clouds dissipating momentarily/releasing warm sun

For Love

Yesterday I wanted to
speak of it, that sense above
the others to me
important because all

that I know derives

from what it teaches me.

Today, what is it that

is finally so helpless,

different, despairs of its own

statement, wants to

turn away, endlessly

to turn away.

If the moon did not ...

no, if you did not

I wouldn’t either, but

what would I not

do, what prevention, what

thing so quickly stopped.

That is love yesterday

or tomorrow, not

now. Can I eat

what you give me. I

have not earned it. Must

I think of everything

as earned. Now love also

becomes a reward so

remote from me I have

only made it with my mind.

Here is tedium,

despair, a painful

sense of isolation and

whimsical if pompous

self-regard. But that image

is only of the mind’s

vague structure, vague to me

because it is my own.

Love, what do I think

to say. I cannot say it.

What have you become to ask,

what have I made you into,

companion, good company,

crossed legs with skirt, or

soft body under

the bones of the bed.

Nothing says anything

but that which it wishes

would come true, fears

what else might happen in

some other place, some

other time not this one.

A voice in my place, an

echo of that only in yours.

Let me stumble into

not the confession but

the obsession I begin with

now. For you

also (also)

some time beyond place, or

place beyond time, no

mind left to

say anything at all,

that face gone, now.

Into the company of love

it all returns.

(Robert Creeley)

Charles Olson.

Charles Olson, drunk and lovely. Keep with it until the middle and then...

there is no strict personal order for my inheritance
no greek will be able
to discriminate my body
an american is a complex of occasions
themselves a geometry
of spatial nature
I have this sense that I am one with my skin

(those are my line breaks, not his)
He has a marvelous epic voice and I have been listening to him before bed, letting his voice pull me into sleep.
I feel like I have my shit together. I'm almost done draft 1 of SSHRC/OGS applications, finished my Duncan seminar for Thursday, completed two more segments of a very long sequential poem dedicated to my sister and several other poems. Maybe I will post them here or something. Not feeling on good terms with blog-land.

Bon soir, lovers.

Drunk and sad with a crush and a grudge.

It must have been hard to exit the womb
with your hands clenched so tight
already fighting against walls
that only wanted to protect you

I cannot waltz through these doors,
indifferent
like you can.

I tried to dance but my legs and my tongue
periodically abandon
the rules of nerve centers

your body learns to move because it must.

I am not so invincible to escape the placenta
and the mediocrity of perfection
or sleep,

the pain of god telling me:
accept the emptiness of your vagina.
and Lacan telling me:
accept the emptiness of the words that describe your physiology

escape routes are still closed to me and
My raging hormones
and gender-bending,
my body's desire

is very open
for you to describe
with pretty
adjectives
you learned in text books

adapt me to suit a song
then leave me like you found me

you ought to be proud that I'm getting good marks.

Every little bit of our bodies (We are only bodies v. 2)

Michael Hessel-Mial is an interesting person who did a remix of some of my poems. I really dig what he did, I think its quite marvelous, and I love the concept of poetry re-mixes.
The remix is here.
His blog is here.

*he is also the author of "i am rainbow," a poetry series of exceptional quality at PBP. I love "...poem" it made me feel very sad and alive, much like I feel while reading Lacan.

x

The mans hands:
bones wrapped in brown parchment paper
fingers sliding between the pages of a newspaper and the
crack
of paper separating and opening up
words.
The intricate geography of bodies
illuminated
like archaeological digs;
these artifacts must be carefully withdrawn and
dusted off.
Some things cannot be
excavated
and remain rooted in soil.
To know your face
is to know a country
always at war.

the city opens its sutures
lets you feel the sticky wet veins of its
hot pavement cooling under your bare feet

we slip out of machines
like water dripping from eaves troughs
to emerge from catacombs
resurrected

the city wants your body;
blinds you when you walk indoors

the city wants to be inside you
trembling when it enters

Poem published on cookiebomb.

+
'cookiebomb' should be a verb.
"cookiebomb it, yo."
say cookiebomb 10 times fast until it becomes a lovely weird sound rolling around in your mouth.

When you slip out of me
I feel how empty my body is
and realize I am a shitty feminist
instead of you between my legs or lips
I will grip a cigarette between my fingers
and curl up naked in front of the window
to watch construction men
drill metal into wood

I yield too quick

Today is the first t-shirt day.

My birthday is on Sunday. My roommate told me to choose whatever random shit I wanted to do. So we are going on a thrift store journey and scouring kensington market for random vintage shit and then having a star trek marathon and drinking whiskey and eating cake and possibly bowling. These are the kind of things I like to do. I will probably wear a dress tomorrow. We were supposed to go camping but due to various circumstances the reservation was postponed for a few weeks from now.
I am really happy right now.
I really really like Kurt Vile & the Violators new EP. It is called "Hunchback EP." You can find it at ill-formed. I seriously suggest you listen to it. I always cry stupidly when the song Losing It comes on. Really fucking beautiful and stuff.
I am reading a lot of Marcuse and Baudrillard. I have fallen in love with Marcuse.

Poem, yo:

skin exposed already
makes me flinch and I
lower my open mouth
onto thick cold scoops
of chocolate soft-serve
and lick the cone
so it softens with my mouth's moisture
and you looking at me
touching your hard cock in the park
under shorts
while I lie in the sun
flicking ants off exposed limbs
scratching mosquito bites

I am going to take a long bath now. All these photos are from flickr people but I am irresponsible and forgot to record exactly who took what. If you know, or whatever, let moi know. But they are not mine.

I am a useless human being, come to bed with me.

he/she dreams of floating down Wittgenstein's river
inundated by language
holding out one arm
to steady the body
slow the movement
touch the bottom.
but the riverbed is vulnerable,
nowadays.

he/she sticks one finger into the sediment
“perhaps we are not so

secure
(as we'd like to believe)”
he/she shouts

and the current moves the body
and the water is not so clear
as he/she first believed
when she/he first stepped in,
feeling cold at first
then warming
with familiarity
and the ease of it

not knowing who to communicate with;
he/she communicates
{with}
everything
or nothing

---

the Subject is penetrated,
the information man
smacks heads against the wall
inserts codes like stitches
that play across our brains:
we refuse to speak except on screens

Benjamin is displeased
now the oral tradition is usurped
there is nothing to communicate
information has triumphed over experience
(for) now
and there is no past to preserve.

The gods and the goddesses
were murdered by machines
that took their faces and learned
to smile while disciplining

paranoia fuels my fusion into Other
we are quietly balanced between
being and nothingness
and have learned to embrace this
playful, strenuous, dangerous dance
to smile on the edge of ledges
and look down
from a threshold
that refuses to stabilize

we must re-learn bodies
and the way they move
against other bodies
and the way language cradles
and sings us to sleep
or disciplines
and abandons;
we are the progeny of
dead dictators

this is recoupling:
go to the next line
resurrect it all over again


this is closure

Un poème et quelques photos.

So terrific. Found via Kanye West's blog, via Fabrik.
Oh yeah, and it's by Gonzalo Benard and called "The Awakening of the Self."

Also, if you dig creepy drone/ambient music, listen to Preslav Literary School's album "Beautiful Was the Time." You can find it at ill-formed.

"Preslav Literary School is found sound, organic drones, tape noise and spoken word. Recording sonic experiments, poetry, birdsong and drones onto cassette tapes and dictaphones, Preslav Literary School then mixes these sources with vintage keyboards, Buddha machines and old transistors in engaging live performances to create layered, improvised soundscapes." -Last.fm blurb

---

Sublimation & Genesis


When were we trained to suck cock

Is this how Eve responded when the snake
Bit her in the garden?

On her knees sucking life from the animal
Implanted

Adam jerking himself off in the corner
Whining “she made me do it”

Joking with his sons
“See what I named”
“See what I fucked”

I own everything that has come to me
Seeking order
identity

All they want is to be full of something

I think I agree, yes, we are cyborgs.

I forget sometimes that you know how to move your fingers in beautiful ways that I do not understand, I always admired your hands, they are pianist's hands, you could do anything with those hands, especially with guitars and my body.
I sometimes forget that the words I write and the things I do and the people I experience will be good-for-nothing one day. This is liberating but also sad because it devalues experience in some way. Everything is set loose and I can scramble all I want to maintain some uniform, linear existence with everything beautifully tracked and recorded but certain moments will fall between the cracks. Like the beautiful spaces between your long, long fingers.
I feel bad for the books on the bottom shelves of libraries, they are prone to neglect. I took off my shoes and crawled on my knees along two aisles, call number PS, the pattern of cheap carpet imprinted on my red knees looking for forgotten poetry caressing colourful spines
I completed one somersault
then rolled on my back and giggled loudly
slicing the silence
libraries are not sacred, but we pretend they are
A girl looked at me from between two rows
like in some romantic comedy where the prey is watched by a shy predator
subtle, innocent voyeurism
she smiled at me quickly then looked away
I curled into a ball
smiled wide into my fists
muffled loud riotous laughter

I love when the world opens to me briefly and I can hear beautiful music pouring from its every orifice, from the torn up spines of joyful books