this black thought today

normally an impassive companion, 

taking whatever I have to give, 

and remaining an unbreakable lake,

now gurgles in the font of every exchange
hangs nearly undetectable, between particles of breath,

and dissipates like dew under the heat of questions.

the ideas that used to play, a well intentioned assemblage of

consonants, sentiments and rhymes, delicious with abstraction 

rendered an hour not just an hour: exponential 

cell division of minutes, blooms inside moments, clustering, and culminates

an apparition of voluptuous shape, soft and thick as the air of summer dusk,  

but now collapsing upon itself, a principled arrest

and the absurdity to mistake it for fully human.

Baltimore

Bad weather is not so bad in a different city, and tonight the sleet is coating everything glossy and dangerously smooth with its gossamer layer. In a different city, outside alone this night,  I'm a body among bodies. Object among objects. Magenta hat. Green eyes. And the wet drips off me, like it drips off anyone, and that's all there is right now. And all anyone needs to do is move forward and breathe. Statues that we pedestrians are passing by stand immutable, faintly glorious.  Domineering in the sunlight, and shrunk now in the dark.  If I could crack them open and animate their interiors I imagine some of them roiling and furious, and still others whimpering from rot. Oh the lives they must have lived to deserve them. The import of accomplishments. Erected for legacy, and largely now just scenery. Slapped ignominiously by this weather.  Birds sit on them, shit on them, and fly away with a truth about life.  If I could, I would call them to me. Their faint wild smell and heaving little breasts. I wouldn't mind if they clawed my shoulder, tugged at my hair, and scraped my neck, as they told me what they saw from up there, and how it felt to leave, rising above both statues and people. And then I would know what they know.  Living is not triangulated and charted, erected and legacied. It's flying. Which is to say, it is cold-fingered and panting, soft and serious, concerned and thoughtful, grateful and doubtful, hungry and full and broken hea rted and you and me, us and we.  Sore with dreams.  These thoughts unravel at night, and lovingly strangle me.

have you ever gone through something
the threads of it multi colored awful-fine slinking across your brow
passing over, snagging, sliding
you didn't even notice you had been moving the whole time
yeah.
yeah, you were moving the whole time.
some crazy lines I've been fed
I ate every one - but when I look at you and
the light is just right
the taste becomes the light

You gave me everything, including this pouf of grace in an natty pocket.
I was robbed blind.
That little grace fell into a turbine, a whirl and a power so mighty
spraying sub-particles that anyone can breathe in,
And isn't that like the way love and despair work too
trading me off like a partner in a dance
shoes scuffed and worn but I can't look because I'm moving the whole time
yeah.
yeah, moving the whole time
this crazy line.

From Garnish to Gut.

You quickly understand your life is not all that bad by watching just the last 25 minutes of The Shining. 

I've often wondered why horror movies had such devoted fans.  I know it's not really because you horror film watchers need to feel better about your own lives.  Or maybe?  Or, maybe you appreciate the score.  Many horror films I've seen have some of the best scores in movies.  And they (can be) cerebral, primal and physical.  I think that the real horror playing out in society would obviate the need.  Somehow, the madman-gone-public tragedies at Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Co. and then, newer Newtown and its even newer Boston, it's taken the optimism for a safer society, and the fight, right out of me.  They say some people like to be scared, to get a charge off it. I believe it.  People just want to be scared in different ways. They jump out of airplanes, they go into the burning building, they make unpopular social and political stands, they blow the lid off of NSA domestic spying operations, they martyr.  Being scared may not be the primary reason, but it's part of the cockail, from garnish to gut. Would it make sense to say I'm scared that I'm scared? Do you get off on horror movies? Are you scared? Why?

Listening Loudly: the Parts and the Sum of The Joy Formidable

It occurs to me at the end of the 2nd song at the Joy Formidable's March 29 concert at Union Transfer in Philadelphia that they are definitely all that I'd hoped they'd be and then some.  By the end, after the enthusiastic gong banging, the public sharing of the band's fruit tray, the endearing Welsh accent, the loud, hard but eminently listenable and catchy music, and the fact that drummer Matt is a magical two-armed octopus on speed you understand it was very special indeed.  

This was one of those shows where you start out being enthusiastic of the obvious hard-playing talent and sweet-but-not-underrepresented singing of Ritzy, and you lean over to you friend and say something like "Ah, I feel like I'm watching a younger Courtney Love at the very top of her game without all the psychodrama!  She's really so good!"

And then you calm down a bit from that and realize, oh wow, hey, Rhydian is a rock-solid performer on each and every song.  He does so much, brings so much to each song so you lean over to your friend, and say something like "Damn, check him out, he's brings it to the wall each time!"  You add in something redundant and obvious like "He rocks!" and "He's really so good!" But then, when its over too soon and they have a harpist gently playing a tune which sounds like Whirring, and fuck you hope it is, because, well, that's a great song too, and then it is, and then the rocketship that is Matt's playing takes off for its final flight you lean over to someone - really, anyone - who is next to you, and you don't need words, you beam at them and shake your head and affirm, "WOO HOO!" and as a final coda, scream "YYYYEAH!!!!!"

And there you have it folks, the Joy Formidable: each member purely worthy and entertaining singly, and really, so good, as I may have mentioned before.

Go.  See them.  "It means that I can be happy for you.  Happy for you. Happy for you. Happy for you...."*


*(from their song the Greatest Light The Greatest Shade)

the tendency to do nothing
nothing - is worth attempting
why help?  why cry?
it sounds so low
but its not as low as I can go
but oh there are things I like
amusements, lifestyle and tricks
cheap licks - these are
such a seismic shift in approach.

its hard to even remember the old days existed
except as anecdote
something I hardly ponder
gone and extinct
the wonder

but I make more money
and I've almost shed the cautionary guilt
I can only imagine how that must look
dance in the kitchen
drink wine, masturbate, make dates
and honest feelings about details

I wanted more, much more?
I can't answer that question
more living more meaning more feeling
and that cache' from the stuff I couldn't shake soon enough
the otherness, the earnestness, the hap-hazard, skip-walked
I've colored over all that, but I still see my shape there
outlined in chalk.

welcome, And I'm like

There's a new blog on the block, something I've been rolling around in my psyche.  Now my husband knows my affiinity for describing the DNA of things or people or my state of mind in my own way, whereby I utter things like,  "This song, this song is like if you took Rocky and Bullwinkle and them strapped them down with a suicide vests and told them they have just 3 minutes to live.  The next three minutes, that would be this song."  My new blog, And I'm like attempts to just let that run loose like the madwoman it was born to be.  Its fun, I promise.  Come join and post what you (or it, whatever the "it" is) is like....