ants in a bowl

as kids Jack and I played ants in a bowl. 
collect ants 
put them in a bowl 
introduce them to swimming. 
sometimes we took the ants to the water ourselves, 
to let them be rocked by the big water.
sometimes on a clear big day with no clouds 
we lost the bowl. 
sometimes on a big day of climbing the same 
beyond-problem a little water gets on your head
making it nice to be tired. 
sometimes too much water, 
the ants promptly drowned.
sometimes after tugboating a bowl of ants in water 
writhing ants got stuck in my hair,
helpless as a cashier, or Saran-Wrap. 
Jack and I responded to this new problem 
as best we could, with blame & emphasis.
it’s not an easy thing, 
to transport a bowl of ants.

the cybernetic scorpion

On Dreams-

Surrealist Midwestern painter John Wilde allegedly said, (and I am paraphrasing) that the purpose of his paintings was to excavate his dreams.

Renowned anthropological hack Claude Lévi-Strauss claimed that the purpose of myths was to allow humans to simultaneously embody and resolve paradoxes. (One of his only good takes.)

So, to embody contradiction – coherently – one must embrace surrealism. This is my thesis and my starting point in this historical moment. It’s how I feel anyway, given that I am detached from reality, and so everybody. Can the surreal heal?

My objective with this piece is to superimpose and to braid my intuition @ a center, with the disorder and crying I feel on the periphery always. Yeats has a cool poem that works through this, but I’m doing it in narrative. The narrative is based on two back-to-back dreams I had.

It’s also very possible that I wrote this out of spite, which might explain why it’s more cogent than other things I’ve written recently.

On Function-

I aim to maintain a critical stance on the function of literature.

Basically, I think writing is an exercise in inhabiting the possible, and there’s a labor in imagining a different world that I think is important. I am SICK of stories that punish as premise and doubly punish by negating the possibility of a different future. Obviously I am no post-humanist (yet.) (see above statement on detachment.)

Anyway, at this point I’ve set myself up for a story that’s a lot cooler than what I can pull off yet, but that’s my vision.

As before, there’s a bibliography @ the end. Note: this is less of a direct-citation bibliography and more of a books-that-got-me-good bibliography.

the-cybernetic-scorpion Download

poem for goose epiphany

lying here with you 
the wild geese are gone 
our love once again made
like a bed. like a song
bird I came, then I burst into tears. 
surreal. you watched (repeat) 
you watched me like a mirror. 
fevered by matching, 
two hot blood seeking satellites.  
after it all, we realize: 
the wild geese are gone. 
I realize something else, too.

a lobotomizing knife’s interpretation of power

“Power is the ability to act decisively to achieve goals despite resistance.” -Lenny

Jesus saves, but where does he shop? Slam ass 
To the savings. Slam ass to the real estate market. 
Consumerism is mimicked needs, so you need saving. 
Salvation is learned helplessness. 
A Cop-out! We don't need saving. We need power. 

Co-opt Foucault: Power is creative. It creates structures. A lobotomy 
Knows power.  It structures our docility through rupture. Profits benefit 
From my helplessness. Profits lobotomize. Little Bitch Homesick 
In this existence blues. Clues: Liberation from cooperation. A mentality 
Of abundance? We don't need lobotomies. We need power. 

How do we build power? People 
Sprawled on the couch planning out firing our boss. 
Criss-cross the PM cooking. People have to feel safe 
I mean people have to eat. My stomach sounds like a shopping cart 
Outside breaking laws. Pause. Let's eat. People have to feel safe 
To take risks together. People have to feel safe
Every space must be a healing space. Love handles. 

I mean, love handles. It. 
Re-energizing meetings. Profit weaning. Amplifying the network. 
A good organizer can organize themselves out of a job. 
A good organizer is the devil. Shoulder speaking. Lead the people into leadering. 
We might survive. We might die. I might be living.

crawl poem

I felt this poem's kick 
before I knew its sex. 
It's not a boy. 

It's curious, it crawls on hands
And walks on toes. 

It burrows in the purple hammock 
strung under my coworker's eye. 

This poem wakes up white and pissy, 
freckled, just like subway snow. 

Born from piss, this poem is bad water.  
This poem must be meek as worms: 
clean via body pores. 

Otherwise, what's there to inherit? 
It’s curious, so 
this poem tries eating shit. 

This poem's feminine is soft kiss, ashes, 
and we all fall down. 

Instead, the sun falls down again. Anger 
sunsetting. This poem stretched out on the rug. 

Clarity settles with a thud, 
like the last page of a book- 
oh, I wish. 

I want to believe there's an end.
In order to get there, I must 
forget about endings.

Ticia

Tice is 
the tallest three year-old
you have the guts to imagine. 
If a squirrel learned
to point and shoot a BB gun- 
she walks taller 
than that. 

Tice
beats her hands 
like pigeons drowning. 
She beats her friends- 
the ego beats itself. 
And all the teachers bargain
to not have her around.
And the aunts whisper condemntions to their potatoes, 
because 'Ticia is not gentle with her voice. 

'Tice is the only kid who laughs at my dumb jokes. 
She laughs like a bat
loosed from the attic. 

And when she can't have it Her Way. Mi amor. 
She flees back to the attic of tantrum. 
Get out of that season's way. 

Beneath the attic, in the house, I teach 
when to breathe, 
how to breathe, 
from the navel. I have few teachings. 
Why shouldn't I? 

This is a child who will easily
break her own heart. 
And thus she will learn love.

snow on brown leaves

A wisp of the will. It whispered,
disperse. Into migraines. Smashinto
bootleg latkas.
Into garlicky anomalies &
Friday night laundry, necessary, re: 
spaghetti dinner massacred 
                                       that white t-shirt. 

Removing it. (balling it up with masking tape.) 
Ripping my insecure geography of 
political futures 
from the wall. (balling it up with future-scented detergent.) 
Futures bottled, had? I have none. I am None, the Wiser.

Now, if I could river. 
If I could for one day run
without touching the bottom. 
If a homesick fish could know water. 
If you could reach me
like the disc of a sunfish 
rising 
from unseeable water. 
Like the sick sun rising in the window
reaching for me. 

The muses don't talk, they sing 
nonsense at me. 
You sense talk me. 
We talk, nonsense becomes a giddy sense. 
When it’s rain, rain pours itself.
What am I saying?
Nothing in particular. 
I'm the hissing 
snow, falling on brown leaves.