Any semblance of presence over there??? I'm not that far away!
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The stars are out tonight.
Friday, July 24, 2009
The stars are out tonight.
We are drawn to turn our gazes upward--to look at brightness, somehow defiant at the heavens looking down at our mediocrity. Answers constellate themselves, depending on what we want to see. Trace-the-dots. How often we mistake their combined form for another, only because we don't know where to look or what to see! They seem to be grateful for the distance from our questioning gaze, wise to avoid questions that are answered by experience. We were born from stardust after all.
They continue to burn, oblivious to the answers we've assigned to them. And we continue to gaze at their enduring death, yearning to burn through life like the glorious moment of a rebellious falling star. Maybe it's the pursuit that matters--the blaze of light across the dark sky. A Shooting Star! A Falling Star. (Close our eyes, make a wish.) We are changed by the desire for something beyond THIS. Something MORE than this.
Maybe because the stars burn so so bright, we're meant to witness only their dying, lest we perish in their terrible beauty. Incapable of surviving such brilliance, they tell us--THIS, should be enough...for now.
Relieved, they are glad for our silence. Enough for tonight. We pry our eyes away with difficulty. They are just stars after all. And we just hope for meaning in such tragic deaths.
The Other 1
The train doors open and close at every stop. People come in, just for a moment, until they disappear on their way. No traces are usually left behind. Neither wet footprints nor perfume withstand the crowds.
However, on the PATH Train to JSQ today, smudged blood colors the floor as I step inside. Dark leather shoes settle above it, as ordinarily as if it were kitchen tiles. A homeless person calls out for mercy, "We can all become homeless. Please feed me." But people avert their gaze, in a weak attempt to feign blindness. But we all heard him. Passing through the aisle, his arm brushes against my shoulder. I am too busy looking at the stained floor. Finally, the train doors open. People rush out. The color red smudges every shoe.
Labels:
ramblings
A Moment
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The clouds had made a crimson crown
Above the mountains high.
The stormy sun was going down
In a story sky.
Why did you let your eyes so rest on me,
And hold your breath between,
In all the ages this can never be
As if it had never been.
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861-1907)
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Above the mountains high.
The stormy sun was going down
In a story sky.
Why did you let your eyes so rest on me,
And hold your breath between,
In all the ages this can never be
As if it had never been.
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861-1907)
Labels:
poetry
Those Who Love
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Those who love the most,
Do not talk of their love,
Francesca, Guinevere,
Dierdre, Iseult, Heloise
In the fragrant gardens of heaven
Are silent, or speak of at all
Of fragile inconsequent things.
And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in somber pride
Never spoke of this thing,
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face.
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
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Do not talk of their love,
Francesca, Guinevere,
Dierdre, Iseult, Heloise
In the fragrant gardens of heaven
Are silent, or speak of at all
Of fragile inconsequent things.
And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in somber pride
Never spoke of this thing,
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face.
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
Labels:
poetry
"Exploring" may be hazardous to your dignity
Lollipops.
(pauses for violent reactions)
Care for a nipple, anyone?
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(pauses for violent reactions)
Care for a nipple, anyone?
Labels:
christopher st.,
new york
Coney Island
Monday, July 20, 2009
Last Saturday, J, M, and I decided to take the E train to its last stop. It's interesting how the sea calls us still. And even if it wasn't the best beach to go to, we couldn't wait to be near the water's edge.
Plus points:
Soft-serve banana ice-cream
Man in orange briefs showing off his BALLS
Old Woman in a BRA
EXTRA white people
We have an instinct to deny our landlocked state and acknowledge the mariners that that we are. Like turtles born on land, we know that we must seek “the pounding of the waves,” the pulsing of collective memory. Not exempted from the mixing of blood and water in our veins, the sea is part of us. And though we risk the assuring concreteness of land, time and time again, we realize the need to thread through the unknown and surrender our gravity. Only then do we experience reconciliation between what we are and what we'll never completely be. And so finally we return to shore, ready to hold up our own weight, if only to wait and be called home again.
Labels:
coney island,
photography,
ramblings
The Function of Art 1
Thursday, July 16, 2009
On the 1 train to 51st Street, a man armed with charcoal and a small notebook entered one day. Swirls of color stained his arms with tattoos that must have meant something to him. To her they whispered, "We cannot be contained."
Glancing around, he waited for something to speak--mysterious eyes, a shy smile, a strand of hair waiting to be brushed away. In their seeming ordinariness, he knew that each one still had a story to tell; each face, a fleeting testament to one's odysseys. But his eyes finally rested on her. He recognized her even if he'd never known her. And so with a strange sense of urgency, he simplified her life with lines of black and white, illuminating her soul with shaded depths of gray.
When he was satisfied, he flipped his notebook. A collection of strangers flash by. She wasn't his first. Stepping out, he hides a smile, proud to carry with him a testament to each one's secret desire--"Please see beyond me."
Recordar: To remember, from the Latin re-cordis, to pass back through the heart.
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Glancing around, he waited for something to speak--mysterious eyes, a shy smile, a strand of hair waiting to be brushed away. In their seeming ordinariness, he knew that each one still had a story to tell; each face, a fleeting testament to one's odysseys. But his eyes finally rested on her. He recognized her even if he'd never known her. And so with a strange sense of urgency, he simplified her life with lines of black and white, illuminating her soul with shaded depths of gray.
When he was satisfied, he flipped his notebook. A collection of strangers flash by. She wasn't his first. Stepping out, he hides a smile, proud to carry with him a testament to each one's secret desire--"Please see beyond me."
Recordar: To remember, from the Latin re-cordis, to pass back through the heart.
LDF
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
If only I could stop breathing,
squeeze this ache and
clasp the vertigo inside me
in my fists...
If only I could run
to close this space
that reminds me that we're apart,
If only I could make you truly see--
see me,
how I am without you,
Then there would be no need for these quiet tears, shouting in ALL CAPS, and emoticons.
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squeeze this ache and
clasp the vertigo inside me
in my fists...
If only I could run
to close this space
that reminds me that we're apart,
If only I could make you truly see--
see me,
how I am without you,
Then there would be no need for these quiet tears, shouting in ALL CAPS, and emoticons.
Labels:
poetry
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