Making Love to Concrete

Making Love To Concrete

An upright abutment in the mouth
of the Willis Avenue bridge
a beige Honda leaps the divider
like a steel gazelle inescapable
sleek leather boots on the pavement
rat-a-tat-tat best intentions
going down for the third time
stuck in the particular

You cannot make love to concrete
if you care about being
non-essential wrong or worn thin
if you fear ever becoming
diamonds or lard
you cannot make love to concrete
if you cannot pretend
concrete needs your loving

To make love to concrete
you need an indelible feather
white dresses before you are ten
a confirmation lace veil milk-large bones
and air raid drills in your nightmares
no stars till you go to the country
and one summer when you are twelve
Con Edison pulls the plug
on the street-corner moons Walpurgisnacht
and there are sudden new lights in the sky
stone chips that forget you need
to become a light rope a hammer
a repeatable bridge
garden-fresh broccoli two dozen dropped eggs
and a hint of you
caught up between my fingers
the lesson of a wooden beam
propped up on barrels
across a mined terrain

between forgiving too easily
and never giving at all.

-Audre Lorde

Words words words

This poem is dedicated to the Dog-Woman who appeared to me in a series of dreams.- "hmm," Leslie Scalapino

Echo

is memory

-"Guido, i' vorrei che tu e Lap ed io," Robert Creeley

I seek a permanent home, but this structure has an appearance of indifferent compoundedness and isolation, heading toward hopelessness. - "Permanent Home," Mei-mei Berssenbrugge

Letter I.

To a little croft,


rain is known as soft water,
I am using the term "ritual" to refer to the girl of wax.  Though human faces seem not to change while we are looking at them.  For example, the air around a cemetery is said to cause illness.  Their typology is based upon coals of moon.

The dark room has grown waxen.  Was there nowhere but here?  The scent surmised a furnace of camellias.  Misplaced a storm for a glass and now that the mimetic body had newly left, I wondered and then he woke.

-laynie browne

Blouse crumpled my
breasts unbuttoned into sleeping

-"Waking from
Sleep a Thousand Miles Thick," Laura Moriarty

II
The time: history will determine that one, not
the reader's watch.
-"PROEM: THE LOGIC OF FROGS #383," Steve McCaffery


Oh how shall I defy you
-"Postlude," William Carlos Williams

MEZZO FORTE

Take that, damn you; and that!
         And here's a rose
  To make it right again!
         God knows
  I'm sorry, Grace; but then,
It's not my fault if you will be a cat.
-William Carlos Williams

Quote

The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house- Audre Lourde

imagery

it carries the swing forward
almost over the top
the seat wildly tumbling
from side to side to side
and whistling
splinters catching the wind
empty hanging chair
ropes unwinding
nearly breaking
even more with every
swing and arc
the neighbor seatless
the rubber band long gone
sent to the bottom of the muddy sandbox
buried by someone
it doesn't matter who
grass is reaching upward
as though made of vines that grow
and climb on the strong airs
and streaming drops of rain
"take me to the sky!"
they scream
and what being
object or subject
would want to stay?

Hard Day

I probably need to post more-- clear the air, release my irritation in a safe environment.  Not sure the internet's a safe environment, but let's accept that it is for want of energy.

It's rough trying to remind myself that it's worth it.  Everything we study, even things that seem positive- working together toward a common cause- is given a negative spin.  We are told that corporations control everything, the environment is damned, the Evangelical Christians are going to do away with people of color, gays, transfolk-- the end of the world may be coming.  The Economic Crisis will never end-- we may never be able to pay back our student loans.  I don't have much in student loans yet, but I'll have to rack them up if I go for my PhD.

I'm told by people on the outside who don't know what they're talking about that I'll never get a job with a Cultural Studies M.A.  I'm told a PhD in Women's Studies would be useless.  I'm told that no one's hiring professors, and I'm ridiculous if I think that I can stay in state.

Everything I try to do in my research is problematic.  If I do a text-based approach, I'm a coward, and I worry I'll end up depressed in my loneliness- I'll be Iris Chang.  If I work with other people, I'd better "collaborate"-- buzz word of the quarter.  If I do too much, I'm using my subjects-- If I make them do too much, I'm wasting their time.  If I misrepresent, I'm evil.  If I don't represent, I'm worse.  If I leave them to represent themselves, I'm useless, and I haven't got a degree.

I want to use theory presented in the works of Toni Morrison, Yasunari Kawabata, Marguerite Duras.  I'm not academic enough.  Fine, I'll work with bell hooks, Judith Butler, Gayatri Spivak.  Shit, I don't relate to my community.  I want to work with Kyoto School Zen philosophy and I'm a neo-colonialist, an Orientalist.  But if I work with "Western" philosophers, I'm obvious.

If I complain, I'm a rabble-rouser.  If I say nothing, I'm complacent-- the worst.  If I smile and nod- ah, then I know that I'm pathetic, a brown noser- "to thine own self be true"- yet, then I am beloved.

It is no wonder we feel that we are all fools incapable of success.  We are made to feel as though whatever we are and whatever we may become, we not only have failed to solve anything, but we have made things worse.  But saving one starfish is also not good enough-- we cannot even hope to stand still.

Believe nothing. No matter where you read it,Or who said it, Even if I have said it, Unless it agrees with your own reason And your own common sense.

-Buddha Gotama

Big Words

ive lost the Big Words today
cant use them
anymore
dont feel like feeling prejudiced
giving up on heterosexism
no more trying to understanding hermeneutics

i cant stand them anymore
trying to explain in windy words
sounding like a poem all on their own
latin-y and ending with isms or logies
words that probably got made up
by some rich guy
talking about how hard he had it
a hundred years ago

whats the point anymore
the worry, it eats away at my brain
a growth coming out of my heart
ate up everything
except the hands i got to use
to type out those long words
and the brain
whats left of it

i cant do write or right by you
you who i want to be a we with
my love feels so big
big as those long words
big as tintinabulation
big as juxtaposition
big as antidisestablishmentarianism
not even sure that is a word
if it is, it ought to be chopped up
cut into little pieces and hid away in a box

what good do they do us
i say us
i hope you understand
i just can't stand being alone right now
even writing here on my own
thinking about the world
and what good im doing in it
learning big words
learning to spit out theory like it was my own
learning that everything's "problematic"

wishing i could learn how to change
while i also learn
about the end of the world
thatll probably be here
by the time i graduate.

Cosplay

In addition to cosplaying as Kaylee from Firefly (I just need an OD Green Jumpsuit-- apparently, they are $20 are Ed's Sir Plus so I'm going to send the expensive one, which does not fit over my boobs, back!), I am thinking of a few other cosplay ideas.

Anyway, I'm going to try to track them all.  Some are easier than others, foa shoa!

Kaylee Cosplay-

Needed materials-
Flowery pink, long-sleeved shirt
Sleeveless OD Green jumpsuit
Black boots
Leather strap bead necklace
Blue flower patch
Red heart patch
Bear patch
Chinese characters :o)

What I've got-
Sorta lame pink, long-sleeved shirt (I'm hoping to do better!)
Lame, not fitting sleeveless olive green jumpsuit
Fluffy black boots that don't look like hers (but I already had them from a long time ago)
Leather strap bead necklace (authentically made by a jeweler for cheap!)
Blue flower patch (a little too shiney but it should be easy to get another for cheap)
Tiny red heart patch O.o
Bear patch (authentic- from Firefly Cargo Bay)

So basically, I need-
A better shirt
Jumpsuit (but I know where to get it!)
Boots
Blue flower patch
Red heart patch

... I guess I'm not as far along as I thought.

If you see this shirt, buy it!

Okay, so I'm also thinking of doing a steam punk theme, using some of these elements (but cheaper, these ones all came from the lovely Clockwork Couture site):

Also, thinking of doing Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service, because it looks easy (and not slutty!)

So, for her, I'd need:
Baggy blackish purple dress
Red flats
Big red bow
Old-style Broom
Jiji (the cat)

I've got:
Jiji... ^^* Bought him at Kitty Land.  Full size- yay!

But, I think the rest should be easy... let's check the ebay:

Ah, apparently the term is "boxy." The dress shouldn't be hard- but I'd like it to be under $20!
I found the shoes for 99 cents...
Hm... bow is about $10 so I may need to consider making it.
I may need to make the broom, but a gal has explained how to do it pretty easy, so I'm not worried :D

Anyway, those are my thoughts for the FUTURE.  I've also dressed up as BBC Merlin:

He's pretty easy, mostly because no one's seen the show!

D'oh!

Quotes from The Moon Opera

I just finished the book.  Too short, but so lovely.  About Chinese Opera.  It would make a lovely movie-- I wished that I could hear the music, though I could see everything from Bi Feiyu's lovely descriptions.

Quotes:

"Men fight other men, but women spend their whole lives fighting themselves" (39).

"Dieting is a lot like illness" (82).

"The tablets had a lyrical name - Stopping the Pearl... no wonder there were fewer poets and playwrights these days; they were all busy giving names to pills and tablets" (94).