what i've learned, like falling apart, like falling, a part of me is unstable. it is a wondering all about everything. now i feel frigid reality asking me questions at night. is it alright? do you think you will be alright? it is a constant vibration, a shaking of me inside of me. this is the truth as it seems. wondering oh and all and this. blankets keep me warm enough, yes. but in the morning i wake up warm and think, for what? is today going to explain it all? is today alright? is the answer waiting on the dashboard? is the answer somewhere in a pocket? because i hope to see her clothes hanging in the closet. because i hope to hear the sound of her breathing.

never again is unbearably cruel. over is a heartless word that knows not what it does. yes, i am seriously unhappy. when the time to grow has run out, when the answer is no, this is how you feel. luckily for me, so they say. luckily for me time goes on. it makes things done, changes how things appear. years make it all alright. and every time it all comes to an end again, it's alright. this is the truth as it seems. something and another thing will just come along, distractions. band-aids.

these are the feelings. these days i'm feeling shaken. hung high. steady. worried. working but about to be nonfunctional. feeling like a poor translation. that no one knows what this is like and means. i don't even know, myself. feeling like a leaf on the wind, long dead. who knows how deep solitude can be? i always knew that giving up is not a verb. it is a cooling of the heart, and it is usually a lie. giving up is promising to never let you know that i love you again. it is replying to "what does it all mean?" with a sigh. it is dying before dying. it is pouring concrete on a pile of broken glass.

"mueve." she said to me.
"sientate alli."
subway D. New York
city.

it snowed and it was enough.

i love this guy

leaving seattle

terminal S9, red-eye from seattle-tacoma
to detroit to memphis to raleigh-durham
to empty apartment to no love to no warmth.
this is the way it will be.

i can already feel the key turning
the deadbolt lock.

i sit here wondering why you don't
come running to me, as in
the movies and stories.
you were supposed to.
it was somewhere in the script,
i'm sure of it.

but this is the way it will be.
i'll go home. i'm going home.
i'm already here at the terminal.
i feel terminal.

somebody fire the guy who named it terminal.
fire him for having no mercy.

mercy and compassion.
Oh holy God.
“do you think mercy will save you?”
she said once. I hope it will.
I hope it saves us all.

even her.

there is not much more to say now.
there will be more to say later,
when the world stops ending
and starts not ending.

i'm not writing this to bring you down.
i'm writing this because all the people
at terminal S9 are wondering why
i'm crying.

st. petersburg and i are tired, as
are all the rest and pittsburgh. cities.
sitting in our places, unmovable as
locations are where they are located.

too much wind to see the snow, or
too few windows to let it in. ventanas.
i ask myself to prove the need to make
the temperature inside the walls different
from the temperature outside the walls.

remember: it's only seven hundred square feet
on a oblate spheroid spinning round and round
around the sun, sol, estrella proxima.
so go crack the window if you wish.

to be movable is not to move. what i desire
is movement. a motion measurable in

location, which is relative,
speed, which is least important,
and experience, which

turns, forms, explains, and questions
the heart, and is the heart of the motion.

i grant myself permission to move.

i hear the turbines spinning jetly,
as they should. sirens--calling me.

destinations are what you make of them,
and can be reached at any speed you like.

experience is a cat-and-mouse chase
that stands there, grinning.

I think I might have posted this video before a while back, but I was listening to the song on my iPod, and...well...it's just the greatest music video ever.

Fiona Apple - Not About Love

the earth, for example, is a place.
you whisper secrets that earthlings conceal
from the darkness, the vastness of other
places and not-places. we are real.
i turn off the beeping coffee pot
that knows not how to hide terminus and
the void.

you wrapped yourself in steel, streamlined
among anti-gravitational technicalities, stole
away into the dawn. i looked upon the void,
i felt my voice give way. and we know
the cuando and the por que.
these lines could be an introduction that
fails to introduce. fails to close the void.

today, i will explain that our table
has managed to remain a table, that our
cabinets have misplaced the food, that
the doors yet open and close. the floors
tolerate their coverings of tile and carpet,
the windows admit
the sunlight apathetically, and
the pillows guard the bed.

as for me, i mix myself among these things--
wander from room to room, a caged bird
fluttering from floor to waterspout,
perch to floor, perch to waterspout.
these are only poor metaphors. i am
fine, and waiting to wrap myself in steel.
the hope of fluttering to you keeps
me sane, keeps me singing.

i sing late into the night. the
neighbors, if there are any, or
if they are any,
do not seem to mind.

these places we call home are momentary
borrowings, "stays against the madness".
ours remains a simple place, a speck
among the limited locations that would
sustain us, suspend us in the void.
what i mean is that space has a lot of space.
you and i will call any place home,
adjust the blinds and pay the bills.

ad infinitum.

shiny things, where will we find them? but
why most of all must we find them. i suppose
that is a question. i worry sometimes.

beds and endless thoughts they all want to
oppose the sailor and his shore. this is
more or less nothing much at all.

sand let fall will fall and hands
let sand fall this fall. and after it
all we worry about the questions, the

sailors are sure. the sea gulls call.
this is not a question at all.

what's new, what's new. what's up. with you
i feel a black and white picture coming on.
with you it's always waterfalls in the background.
singing in the background. singing new songs.

with you 'd' is for distance. but what is distance
for? what conversations do miles support?

mount st. helens. hello. help.
ashes covering the park, the conversation.
you are with me in a pulsing telephone wire.
together there we clear the air.

The swift poise of a head, a flutter of laughter--
And love flows in on him, its vastness pent
Within his narrow life: the pain it brings,
Boundless; for love is infinite discontent
With the poor lonely life of transient things.

-A.H.
--------------------------------------------------

what is life before you know
this infinite discontent?

an afternoon transformation of
roses, hair, and laughter--
shadowed then unshadowed by a cloud.

dimming the brilliance of these things.

a revival of these sensory dazzlings.

y sigue esta perspectiva del amor,
the infinite contained by corporal time:

stretched into and made to hold.
so tight and bursting.
full and still searching.

the source is endless
and when it flows in
you will know this.

a child stares over his mother's shoulder. at me.
this cuteness doesn't last long is what you said.

yes it lasts at least until he lies down
in his father's arms, still as moonlight.

and then he's up again to stare again.
they don't know he wants to talk to me.

he knows no words, so he varies the openness of his eyes.
they don't notice he stretches a hand towards me.

time management is an interesting concept.
it is impossible to manage priorities
within a given amount of time.

now picture workers overcrowded on a train.

priorities existed prior to this.
priorities do not give in, they exist,
and overcrowd a given amount of time.

time management is not interesting at all.

friction not time stops a train.
time is not a train but causes friction
within priorities as they exist.

now picture yourself.

prior to this it all existed, though
you may say this train never arrived here
now as it did just now. stop crowding.

time management is a train with no station.

interests existed prior to time management,
which itself was managed prior to the arrival
and helps us picture the overcrowding.

picture luggage left on a train platform.

i heard you sing busco un raro encantamiento,
and i know what that means over strummed strings,

quizas.

que significa a mi es una gloriosa mañana,
y busco tambien,

quizas.

a painting where the light exists stratified
high above, glows in tones of foreign words.

busco cuando el sol es recibido
por un patio de cemento,

quizas.

the narrow city road is really a walkway,
though it has not always been and may
not always be. the stones hide their limits,
but have them.

the windows all along the buildings hold true
to their temporary shape, though temporary
here is undefined, or indefinite.

sunlight falls down through the valley-like space
between the mountains, which are only man-made
buildings. the light falls as it likes.

this is only a picture on the wall.
this is not a real observation, but
a description of a temporary/captured moment.

this took me two minute's time, and i
wonder what you could write
in a similar amount of time.

these words have already begun to cease
to exist.

this may be called an attempt to find a nontexture.

writing is a struggle to cover plagiarism, as all
writing is recycling what has been, as all
fresh dirt on the shovel is
old dirt on the shovel.

I could think about this all afternoon.
But what I need to do is

find you, take you to the store,
buy you things --
you don't like things so much,
so what I need to do is

find a store that sells nonthings,
things with nontextures,
nondescriptions.

A store that sells nonthings does not yet exist.
I spend all afternoon trying to figure you out.

nessun dorma (no sleep)

i've been missing sleep lately. maybe lucianno will help...

linux (abandoned) as a metaphor

/home/user/mmc-sdd/partion1/> cd

/home/user/> linux as a metaphor

Partition is easy to understand. Divide the whole to organize the whole. Partition East from West Germany, but Mr. Gorb., tear down that wall. Partition the East from the West Bank. Partition the rich from the rest. Partition my heart from my chest. Partition my hair from my head as I read the New York Times. They'll raise the prices still, they think. The supply, the supply, they say. Shove that 'per barrel' up into the stratosphere. The space-o-sphere. The universe-o-sphere. Oh sure. The price will rise to beat the Nile. They slip in from the bank, those crocodiles.

This was supposed to be about Linux. This was supposed to be about me. Installing and running so far is complex. Lines of coded language where simple icons should be. I click the |X| to live in simplicity. Files lost and errors. I suppose this is Linux. Maybe this is me.

I read the paper and I see the crocodiles swimming. Crookodiles swaggering there tails in stuff we live in.

Some King hospital in NYC. Some psychiatric ward with, often, a 24-hour wait to get a bed. Security cameras record a woman sitting for hours. She blacks out – falls down dead. Over an hour later, a hospital worker nudges the dead woman with a neglectful foot. Autopsy shows sitting so long made blood clots in her legs. Deep-veined thrombosis, I think, is the term. People can get it on long car drives or flights. Stretch your legs every once in a while. The clots moved to the womans lungs. The waiting killed her.

Same page. Man and wife have decided their too-many-thousand-foot home is too big for them. Eight-car garage, movie theater, indoor pool. Everything. It's too much. She only wants 3,000 square feet. He needs 7,000, he says. For 31 million, the house won't sell. Economy's falling and real estate has the shimmies. For 200+ thousand and the right standing, you can bid on their house. Bidding will last a month and start at 19 million dollars.

Million dollars.
19.
1 or 19 or any million dollars... Same page: a woman dies waiting for a hospital bed. The hospital will be revamped and hopefully the wait time will be reduced to just 12 hours, a spokesman says.

Is it too much to evaluate myself as a metaphoree of Linux? Linux, an operating system I don't understand in a world I don't understand in a self I don't always understand. Where do I draw the line and say, 'This is how far I'll extend my heart. This is what I will understand'? To the universe-o-sphere? To my fingertips?

Same paper. More middle-eastern villages reduced to rubble. More politics in a bind in Africa. Zimbabwe has it worse than women in some King hospital in NYC.

Maybe.

Maybe it's easier to focus on fingertips. Maybe my hands are complex enough to fill my spare time. It's unlikely that the Crookodiles will ever come snapping at my hands. I know this is because they don't need to. They have already carved their initials into my wallet.

Partition my wallet from my pants. Subdivide and budget and understand this river we're swimming in.

i owe it to myself
i suppose,
in the way we all owe it
to ourselves...
all of us alike in this;

i also owe it to a
wandering star from
middle california
who owes it to
a famous wanderer
who once owed it to
roads and angels,

which were created
at some time or another.

tbcc

i believe in you only on the exhale;
you move out and up, apparently.

dissipate yourself into your true self;
stretch your shape into something more you.

you give your response because
the question no longer applies:

your taste is in the afterthought,
in the search lights of your escape.

east

hold not energy against
Mangala, over early to eat.

these things are happening
to everyone else as well. rice, fish,

roughage as a point which blends, in
Hong Kong as in Nepal; wash your face

and while handfuls of knives prepare,
and while footprints on the river dock --

freshly walked upon
to bring this naked meal

of rice in functionally sewn sacks --
evaporate into the dimming daylight,

and while you mill in the quay of the river
it is all the same. you will not

disrespect his state of mind,
nor your sense of self, nor i.

04.06.08 connection

connection is an assumption
.sometimes there are kisses.
or well it means some dear thing
.kisses are real connections.

solitude is real and solitude is not

solitude is a real loss of connections
.sometimes there are not kisses.
or will there be a meaning found
.solitude is not just no kisses.

connections are real and connections are not

hands are sometimes held
.sometimes there are hands held.
Sundays give no care whether this is so
.hands sometimes make connections.

Sundays are real and Sundays are not


belief

belief might be found inside
who knows
a yellow-flower petal
fallen upon Tuesday's grass
and dew-soaked

her face, her face
yes
it is that sort of day

belief might have dug
its way into a corridor,
or
decided to be no more

don't
you just sit there wondering
where this might be,
believing it is

something and somewhere

sestinka

A man on the corner cracks open an ice-cold Bud;
the summer air is stagnant outside his fixed-rent efficiency.
So, he thinks, this must be the city,
where the people are fragile and the minutes are agile.
This is where subterranean sewers collect
the run-off streams of runaways' dreams – possibly

mixing them with silt and rusty needles; 'possibly'
being a polite mask for 'certainly'; few dreams bud
and bloom here – the rain falls only to collect
in puddles with motor oil and antifreeze; the efficiency
with which it creates toxic sidestreet rainbows and agile
pools of pollution tells him this must be the city.

Hoodie and jeans: his haz-mat suit for the city.
Some tenants are moving out – going nowhere – but possibly
that kind of aimlessness is what keeps us all agile;
so, when the trees down the block decide to bud,
we load a U-haul on a whim, with reckless efficiency,
quit our jobs by calling in late, sick, dead, etc. Calling collect.

High above, evaporated ideals and dreams collect
in crooked clouds above the disappointing city,
ready to purge the polluted hearts below with brimstone efficiency.
"Another place; a suburb; another country, possibly;
but not this city, where my flowers won't bud,"
says some she to some he, with a face purely agile.

In a blink, she turns fragile: less agile
than she needed to be, she stoops to collect
pieces of porcelain, dirt, a flower that wouldn't bud,
the shattered remains of the smallest city
dream ever dreamed by some she, possibly
the perfect epitome of this city's efficiency

to flash dreams in pulsing neon lights, its efficiency
to purge hope from a heart once agile.
Maybe she'll leave her dream where it dropped; possibly
crack a weary smile at it all; collect
the few things that do not and never will belong in the city;
set out towards nowhere with some he – her old bud.

The truck rumbles inefficiently downstreet, past where the trees bud,
over broken pavement where the agile youth play the games of the city.
A rain begins – possibly the best city memory some she and some he will collect.

opera

lately, i have been interested in opera music. i bought luciano pavarotti's greatest hits from starbucks, and i'm diggin' it. the reason i like it so much is that it's something i can't do, and probably never will be able to. well, i found a couple videos of another opera singer, juan diego florez, singing a song i really like from the pavarotti collection, and i thought i'd share them.