LILY (in mourning cloak, a moment of weight): Now that the dead are interred into the ground, and now that the bodies are starting to decay, and now that the weight of the memory is heavy on the living, and the dirt is heavy and cold on the dead, now that we are mortal, now that we are heavy with the guilt of having survived, now that we know this is more fragile than we were lead to believe, now that we know that the line between us is so very thin but absolute, now that we are one day older than we were yesterday, now that we are bridges, our faces are bridges between the last generation and the next, our bodies are carriages between one place and another, our eyes are bridges between yesterday and tomorrow, now that we are not yet old, but absolutely older, now that we miss you, now that we love you, now that the lovers yesterday are coming back, now that tomorrow's lovers are already leaving their shoes at the foot of our bed, now that we are more tired than we could have imagined, now that our eyes twitch even though we know you won't come back, now that our hands shake even though we know we won't be touching your body tonight, now that we are falling in love with being alive in these frail mortal bodies, now that we are stronger than we ever guessed, now that we know we are broken and will never be whole and don't want to be whole, now that we are haunted by the ghosts of the years' dead and the year is far from over, now that we are walking thin lines, now that we are in the traffic, the sounds of the traffic come from us, the lines between lanes are crossed by us, now that we are the things that make the rude noises of this world and make it impossible to sleep through the night, now that we are the night, now that we are the lines between night and morning, now that the lines between the night and the morning are written on our stomachs by tomorrow's lovers, now that we are already just a memory, now that we are living inside a memory that we can't get our heads around, now that our hearts are drowning in the memory from which we don't wake up, now that we know we are sleeping, we are sleeping and we are night and we are memory and we are ghosts and we are falling in love with living in these bodies now we are falling in love with bodies now the weight of bodies on the earth are falling in love with us now we are closing the gates on the winter now we are the gates between the winter and the spring.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Saturday, March 16, 2013
the bar of death and loss
(That scene was such a goddam laugh riot that it takes a very long time for everyone to calm down. This is the next scene. It's the bar, but calm and no one is dancing.)
(And no one should dance, because this is going to be so sad.)
ROBIN: I have big news! I'm moving to Chicago!
MARSHALL: We always knew you had it in you!
BARNEY: I wish it was me.
LILY: Who'm I gonna have erotic and confusing dreams about now, hon? Aw, I'm gonna miss you so much.
(LILY gets weepy but she always does, and while she is weepy BARNEY tries to take a picture of her breasts.)
(But TED is so quiet.)
MARSHALL: Are you all right, Ted?
TED: That's wonderful news, Robin, I always thought you had--
(But he sobs and weeps and can't go on, and while he weeps, BARNEY tries to take a picture of his breasts.)
You won't find what you're looking for under my shirt, sir.
BARNEY: Need some bro hooters for my private collection.
ROBIN: I'm gonna miss you guys, too, but wow, this is my chance, my one shot to really make it big in a city that's not as big as this one.
MARSHALL: Everybody gather round, we're going to do a shot of their oldest whiskey.
ROBIN: I hate whiskey.
MARSHALL: You don't know this whiskey! It's really old! It's older than, than, than Canada!
ROBIN (bursts out laughing): I don't know what that even means!
MARSHALL: I forgot my goddam line! Can we take that again?
(They break. TED pulls ROBIN aside.)
TED: Can I talk to you?
ROBIN: Yes.
TED: Do you know what you're doing?
ROBIN: I do, I'm moving to Chicago.
TED: No. You'r losing me.
ROBIN: I don't lose you. You don't lose me. You'll see me again.
TED: I don't. I lose you forever.
ROBIN: You don't know that, you don't know how it ends.
TED: Actually, I do, I know exactly how it ends, we never see each other again.
ROBIN: I don't think I know what you really want here.
TED: Of course you don't. Listen. What if we're really really old.
ROBIN: You are really really old.
TED: Hahaha. No, I mean, what if we're around a lot longer than we think, than we thought, what if we've done this before.
ROBIN: This moment?
TED: This moment, yes, and the one before, all of them, what if we've done this before, and what if we've been doing this before for more than 500 years.
BARNEY: (Off camera): 500 years?! With the same woman? Good god, give me a joint.
(They bust up.)
ROBIN: Can we take this again?
(Pause.)
ROBIN: He always makes me laugh.
TED: I really don't think I can do this scene.
ROBIN: You need to focus.
TED: No, it just, it really reminds me of something.
ROBIN: It's really personal for you, huh?
TED: It is. I mean, I try not to think about it too much, but there are some people, a few, more than you'd think, but really, not that many, not really that many, who remind you of something, something you used to know, and all you know is that when it was happening, it lasted for a very long time, but then it went away, something happened, and it went away, they went away, at some point, you lost this person, maybe it's a lot of people, or maybe it's the same one, maybe you lose the same one, over, and over, and over again, and maybe you get to recognize the pattern, because you're supposed to do something, something to make it not happen that way again.
ROBIN: Like what?
TED: Like this.
(He kisses her. She breaks it.)
ROBIN: You're not supposed to kiss me when we're not acting.
TED: I got caught up.
ROBIN: Go back to the beginning, please?
(Break.)
ROBIN: I have big news! I'm moving to Chicago!
MARSHALL: We always knew you had it in you!
BARNEY: I wish it was me.
LILY: Who'm I gonna have erotic and confusing dreams about now, hon? Aw, I'm gonna miss you so much.
(LILY gets weepy but she always does, and while she is weepy BARNEY tries to take a picture of her breasts.)
(But TED is so quiet.)
MARSHALL: Are you all right, Ted? (Pause.) Are you all right, Ted? (Pause.) Are you all right, Ted?
(And no, TED is not all right.)
(And no one should dance, because this is going to be so sad.)
ROBIN: I have big news! I'm moving to Chicago!
MARSHALL: We always knew you had it in you!
BARNEY: I wish it was me.
LILY: Who'm I gonna have erotic and confusing dreams about now, hon? Aw, I'm gonna miss you so much.
(LILY gets weepy but she always does, and while she is weepy BARNEY tries to take a picture of her breasts.)
(But TED is so quiet.)
MARSHALL: Are you all right, Ted?
TED: That's wonderful news, Robin, I always thought you had--
(But he sobs and weeps and can't go on, and while he weeps, BARNEY tries to take a picture of his breasts.)
You won't find what you're looking for under my shirt, sir.
BARNEY: Need some bro hooters for my private collection.
ROBIN: I'm gonna miss you guys, too, but wow, this is my chance, my one shot to really make it big in a city that's not as big as this one.
MARSHALL: Everybody gather round, we're going to do a shot of their oldest whiskey.
ROBIN: I hate whiskey.
MARSHALL: You don't know this whiskey! It's really old! It's older than, than, than Canada!
ROBIN (bursts out laughing): I don't know what that even means!
MARSHALL: I forgot my goddam line! Can we take that again?
(They break. TED pulls ROBIN aside.)
TED: Can I talk to you?
ROBIN: Yes.
TED: Do you know what you're doing?
ROBIN: I do, I'm moving to Chicago.
TED: No. You'r losing me.
ROBIN: I don't lose you. You don't lose me. You'll see me again.
TED: I don't. I lose you forever.
ROBIN: You don't know that, you don't know how it ends.
TED: Actually, I do, I know exactly how it ends, we never see each other again.
ROBIN: I don't think I know what you really want here.
TED: Of course you don't. Listen. What if we're really really old.
ROBIN: You are really really old.
TED: Hahaha. No, I mean, what if we're around a lot longer than we think, than we thought, what if we've done this before.
ROBIN: This moment?
TED: This moment, yes, and the one before, all of them, what if we've done this before, and what if we've been doing this before for more than 500 years.
BARNEY: (Off camera): 500 years?! With the same woman? Good god, give me a joint.
(They bust up.)
ROBIN: Can we take this again?
(Pause.)
ROBIN: He always makes me laugh.
TED: I really don't think I can do this scene.
ROBIN: You need to focus.
TED: No, it just, it really reminds me of something.
ROBIN: It's really personal for you, huh?
TED: It is. I mean, I try not to think about it too much, but there are some people, a few, more than you'd think, but really, not that many, not really that many, who remind you of something, something you used to know, and all you know is that when it was happening, it lasted for a very long time, but then it went away, something happened, and it went away, they went away, at some point, you lost this person, maybe it's a lot of people, or maybe it's the same one, maybe you lose the same one, over, and over, and over again, and maybe you get to recognize the pattern, because you're supposed to do something, something to make it not happen that way again.
ROBIN: Like what?
TED: Like this.
(He kisses her. She breaks it.)
ROBIN: You're not supposed to kiss me when we're not acting.
TED: I got caught up.
ROBIN: Go back to the beginning, please?
(Break.)
ROBIN: I have big news! I'm moving to Chicago!
MARSHALL: We always knew you had it in you!
BARNEY: I wish it was me.
LILY: Who'm I gonna have erotic and confusing dreams about now, hon? Aw, I'm gonna miss you so much.
(LILY gets weepy but she always does, and while she is weepy BARNEY tries to take a picture of her breasts.)
(But TED is so quiet.)
MARSHALL: Are you all right, Ted? (Pause.) Are you all right, Ted? (Pause.) Are you all right, Ted?
(And no, TED is not all right.)
Friday, March 15, 2013
oh my god it's the love bar of death
(In the middle of this strange rite, something is happening to BARNEY, who is suddenly worried about his heart. It's not about to break, but instead it is about to be filled, filled with love, with love, with love. This same BARNEY, who was thinking about a literary life, writing the erotic stories of his time, the Henry Miller of his time, he would be called Barney Miller and that, my friends, is legen...wait for it. Keep waiting. No, stop waiting. It will not come. It cannot. Because tonight the Love Bar is the Death Bar.)
(There are three new friends that come into the bar, but it turns out they are all old friends of BARNEYs.)
BARNEY: Oh my gosh, my friends. I have not seen you in ages, and you all have keys to unlock my childhood. Look, everyone, look at my friends.
THREE FRIENDS (variously, improvise like you actor-types do.): No, Barney, they cannot see us, only you can see us, we come to tell you sad news, we all died, suddenly, and out of the blue, and it should come as a shock. We are all dead now.
BARNEY: Oh, my gosh, this sucks.
(The 3 FRIENDS are at the table, drinking everyone's drinks, and eating all the peanuts out of the pretzel bowl.)
MARSHALL: Is this fun, or what?
BARNEY: Marshall, you are a fool. You cannot see beyond this thin veil, none of us are really here, we are all phantoms.
MARSHALL: Oh, Barney, don't let my happy go lucky horny puppy dog backward ways deceive you. I see them, too, the living and the dead, they are always mixing with each other, and in the end, there is no difference.
LILY: (Like Gary Coleman, fake black, offensive.): What choo talkin about Marshall?
MARSHALL: Barney sees the dead, Lily, and so do I.
ROBIN: I am already dead, because I am Canadian, and we know what it's like to be here but but also there, all at once, and it doesn't matter.
TED: I don't think that means anything.
ROBIN: Oh, I'm out of Canadian jokes.
LILY: Don't you mean oot?
(They all laugh, but this is no time for laughs, this is the beginning of the dance of the dead, and they all fall on the floor and shake and writhe with their own deaths, they are dancing their own deaths. It is horrific.)
(And BARNEY dons a black robe and comes forward.)
BARNEY: Love song for this year so far. You can suck a big dog dick. I know you're trying, I know you have good intentions, but this isn't right. You are death, you are as thin as a skeleton, and although I find you so very lovely, you are so thin this year, and you know how I like a little meat on the bone, I'm not keeping any kind of score, not this time, I don't want numbers, I want something with meat on the bone, and this is all death and disappointment.
MARSHALL: Wow, Barney sure gets gloomy when that girl doesn't text him back.
BARNEY: She was three, little man, she was triplets!
(And now they are on the porch smoking, talking about girls, because they are too old to be chatting online.)
MARSHALL: Triplets! You're out of control!
BARNEY: No, you're right, it was one, it was just one, one who broke my heart, and that's why I have a heart murmur that is going to give me a heart attack. It was one. That one, you know the one. Her. Ok, it's three. But it didn't work out so that I could write this erotic memoir where there is nothing erotic happening, only talk, it's all talk.
MARSHALL: I don't think anything really ever happens anyway, not until we talk about it.
BARNEY: I see what you mean. I do. But I really think I'm ready to settle down, with that one, or three, woman, women. I'm ready to settle for something really good. I'm ready to settle for something that hasn't happened yet. I'm ready for something that's never happened before, and I'm ready for it to happen to me.
MARSHALL: I think I'm going to ask Lily to marry me.
BARNEY: Oh shut the hell up, everybody I know just died.
(Gloomy end of scene.)
(There are three new friends that come into the bar, but it turns out they are all old friends of BARNEYs.)
BARNEY: Oh my gosh, my friends. I have not seen you in ages, and you all have keys to unlock my childhood. Look, everyone, look at my friends.
THREE FRIENDS (variously, improvise like you actor-types do.): No, Barney, they cannot see us, only you can see us, we come to tell you sad news, we all died, suddenly, and out of the blue, and it should come as a shock. We are all dead now.
BARNEY: Oh, my gosh, this sucks.
(The 3 FRIENDS are at the table, drinking everyone's drinks, and eating all the peanuts out of the pretzel bowl.)
MARSHALL: Is this fun, or what?
BARNEY: Marshall, you are a fool. You cannot see beyond this thin veil, none of us are really here, we are all phantoms.
MARSHALL: Oh, Barney, don't let my happy go lucky horny puppy dog backward ways deceive you. I see them, too, the living and the dead, they are always mixing with each other, and in the end, there is no difference.
LILY: (Like Gary Coleman, fake black, offensive.): What choo talkin about Marshall?
MARSHALL: Barney sees the dead, Lily, and so do I.
ROBIN: I am already dead, because I am Canadian, and we know what it's like to be here but but also there, all at once, and it doesn't matter.
TED: I don't think that means anything.
ROBIN: Oh, I'm out of Canadian jokes.
LILY: Don't you mean oot?
(They all laugh, but this is no time for laughs, this is the beginning of the dance of the dead, and they all fall on the floor and shake and writhe with their own deaths, they are dancing their own deaths. It is horrific.)
(And BARNEY dons a black robe and comes forward.)
BARNEY: Love song for this year so far. You can suck a big dog dick. I know you're trying, I know you have good intentions, but this isn't right. You are death, you are as thin as a skeleton, and although I find you so very lovely, you are so thin this year, and you know how I like a little meat on the bone, I'm not keeping any kind of score, not this time, I don't want numbers, I want something with meat on the bone, and this is all death and disappointment.
MARSHALL: Wow, Barney sure gets gloomy when that girl doesn't text him back.
BARNEY: She was three, little man, she was triplets!
(And now they are on the porch smoking, talking about girls, because they are too old to be chatting online.)
MARSHALL: Triplets! You're out of control!
BARNEY: No, you're right, it was one, it was just one, one who broke my heart, and that's why I have a heart murmur that is going to give me a heart attack. It was one. That one, you know the one. Her. Ok, it's three. But it didn't work out so that I could write this erotic memoir where there is nothing erotic happening, only talk, it's all talk.
MARSHALL: I don't think anything really ever happens anyway, not until we talk about it.
BARNEY: I see what you mean. I do. But I really think I'm ready to settle down, with that one, or three, woman, women. I'm ready to settle for something really good. I'm ready to settle for something that hasn't happened yet. I'm ready for something that's never happened before, and I'm ready for it to happen to me.
MARSHALL: I think I'm going to ask Lily to marry me.
BARNEY: Oh shut the hell up, everybody I know just died.
(Gloomy end of scene.)
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
it's a love bar oh yes a love bar
(Now. TED is ready to take off his monk robes and enter into the stream of desire again. But before he can, there's something he has to do, and he thinks it has to do with words, so that's how he starts. He puts ROBIN on the table and speaks to her, hoping she will not speak back to him, because that will ruin his spell.)
TED: I want every woman I ever had a crush on to come and stand with you, but most of them couldn't make it, so you'll have to stand in for them. Which is fine. You're a lot of people. This could work. And if you were the girl from high school, the one I was with when we got caught by the police for fogging up the window's of my mom's car, I would tell you: I miss that night, and I remember wanting it to last forever, and maybe it did. And if you were the woman I was married to once, I would tell you that I miss the apartment, not the first one, but the second one, where all the world was green, and by then I was already older, so I had things that I wanted to do, habits and needs of the body that had nothing to do with where we were at that moment, that kept me out of there, and I miss being there, and I wish I could go there again, but I can't find the road, I forgot the turn, the four-way stop before our place, I remember the stop, but I don't remember how to get there, and I have a feeling that I wouldn't recognize the right turn.
ROBIN: It was a left turn.
MARSHALL: Oh my god, Robin, this is just a metaphor! It's just a metaphor! (He screams like a boy on a playground, he's so like that.)
TED: Please. Let me continue. I can't go on, I can't continue, there's too many things I want to talk about, and too many people I want to remember. But that's ok. Because I think I understand something now. I have a soul mate. In this world, I have a soul mate, but she's not from here. And she doesn't work like you do, she isn't stuck in a body, isn't stuck in time. And when she's happy with someone I want, she inhabits her body so that I can know her, but it's always very short. I don't know why it's very short. Maybe it's so she can disappear, and so I will wonder where she went, and when I go off looking again, she'll know I'm following her, and my love for her is real. But she's not here, she doesn't live here, she can't live here. So this, this is all impossible, it's an impossible want, and it's probably not very important that it's impossible, she likes it when I'm looking, and the world is sweet and green and everything else is possible because this singular thing is impossible, and can never be real. But you, you're close, you were very close, you were the only one who could hold it for longer than a short while, because, not because you are a mermaid, you are not a mermaid, because you love them as much as I do, because you're looking for the same thing, and that's why my love for you will never die. Even though you are probably a lot of different people. But you are definitely my favorite, my very favorite one.
ROBIN: I wonder if polyamory might be a way out of all of your problems, Ted.
TED: It's not that easy, it's really not that easy.
BARNEY: I have been working out really hard and I pulled a muscle in my chest and it's on the left side near my heart and it's really freaking me out.
LILY: Nambala sonofabitch! (She breaks, this is a blooper and they all love it. Laughs and funny comments.) Can I take that again?
MARSHALL: I have to take a phone call.
(Cut to new scene with MARSHALL outside by a phone booth. He uses his cell phone inside the phone booth because these kids have such an eye for retro cool.)
MARSHALL: If you came back, I would hold you tighter no matter what. It wouldn't matter to me that you'd try to keep your distance, to protect yourself with fake coolness so I wouldn't start thinking this was permanent. It doesn't matter. You come back for a short time, and then you go, that's how this works, I know that. But if you came back, I wouldn't change my plans to see you, to make you anxious that it might not go so well, and I would be disappointed. I would keep doing what I do, but when I saw you, I would drop everything and run at you with the strength of an elephant, and no power on earth could stop me from making me wake you up, so I could see that look in your eye, the one you get when you're finally here, the one you have right as you recognize me. This has been going on for a very long time.
(When MARSHALL comes back in, they are all dressed up as dolphins.)
(Except for ROBIN.)
MARSHALL: Sea party! (He dances with them in a dolphin dance that is not just a little sexual. ROBIN doesn't even watch.)
ROBIN: Dolphins freak me out more than you can imagine.
BARNEY: Oh, my heart, oh, my heart, oh, this is very weird.
LILY: (Talking like an old wizened black man) Looks like our Barney is finally learning a life lesson, one we could all benefit from.
TED: Ow, someone is on my flipper.
TED: I want every woman I ever had a crush on to come and stand with you, but most of them couldn't make it, so you'll have to stand in for them. Which is fine. You're a lot of people. This could work. And if you were the girl from high school, the one I was with when we got caught by the police for fogging up the window's of my mom's car, I would tell you: I miss that night, and I remember wanting it to last forever, and maybe it did. And if you were the woman I was married to once, I would tell you that I miss the apartment, not the first one, but the second one, where all the world was green, and by then I was already older, so I had things that I wanted to do, habits and needs of the body that had nothing to do with where we were at that moment, that kept me out of there, and I miss being there, and I wish I could go there again, but I can't find the road, I forgot the turn, the four-way stop before our place, I remember the stop, but I don't remember how to get there, and I have a feeling that I wouldn't recognize the right turn.
ROBIN: It was a left turn.
MARSHALL: Oh my god, Robin, this is just a metaphor! It's just a metaphor! (He screams like a boy on a playground, he's so like that.)
TED: Please. Let me continue. I can't go on, I can't continue, there's too many things I want to talk about, and too many people I want to remember. But that's ok. Because I think I understand something now. I have a soul mate. In this world, I have a soul mate, but she's not from here. And she doesn't work like you do, she isn't stuck in a body, isn't stuck in time. And when she's happy with someone I want, she inhabits her body so that I can know her, but it's always very short. I don't know why it's very short. Maybe it's so she can disappear, and so I will wonder where she went, and when I go off looking again, she'll know I'm following her, and my love for her is real. But she's not here, she doesn't live here, she can't live here. So this, this is all impossible, it's an impossible want, and it's probably not very important that it's impossible, she likes it when I'm looking, and the world is sweet and green and everything else is possible because this singular thing is impossible, and can never be real. But you, you're close, you were very close, you were the only one who could hold it for longer than a short while, because, not because you are a mermaid, you are not a mermaid, because you love them as much as I do, because you're looking for the same thing, and that's why my love for you will never die. Even though you are probably a lot of different people. But you are definitely my favorite, my very favorite one.
ROBIN: I wonder if polyamory might be a way out of all of your problems, Ted.
TED: It's not that easy, it's really not that easy.
BARNEY: I have been working out really hard and I pulled a muscle in my chest and it's on the left side near my heart and it's really freaking me out.
LILY: Nambala sonofabitch! (She breaks, this is a blooper and they all love it. Laughs and funny comments.) Can I take that again?
MARSHALL: I have to take a phone call.
(Cut to new scene with MARSHALL outside by a phone booth. He uses his cell phone inside the phone booth because these kids have such an eye for retro cool.)
MARSHALL: If you came back, I would hold you tighter no matter what. It wouldn't matter to me that you'd try to keep your distance, to protect yourself with fake coolness so I wouldn't start thinking this was permanent. It doesn't matter. You come back for a short time, and then you go, that's how this works, I know that. But if you came back, I wouldn't change my plans to see you, to make you anxious that it might not go so well, and I would be disappointed. I would keep doing what I do, but when I saw you, I would drop everything and run at you with the strength of an elephant, and no power on earth could stop me from making me wake you up, so I could see that look in your eye, the one you get when you're finally here, the one you have right as you recognize me. This has been going on for a very long time.
(When MARSHALL comes back in, they are all dressed up as dolphins.)
(Except for ROBIN.)
MARSHALL: Sea party! (He dances with them in a dolphin dance that is not just a little sexual. ROBIN doesn't even watch.)
ROBIN: Dolphins freak me out more than you can imagine.
BARNEY: Oh, my heart, oh, my heart, oh, this is very weird.
LILY: (Talking like an old wizened black man) Looks like our Barney is finally learning a life lesson, one we could all benefit from.
TED: Ow, someone is on my flipper.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
the love bar/ more
Oh there's always more.
This night, TED is so busy not looking at all of his text messages from the last few months, that he is almost convinced to himself that none of anything really mattered all that much. Having become recently Buddhist, he is not attached to anything. But he's reading, oh, he's really reading, he's looking for secret signs.
TED (looking at his phone): Right here, this one right here, look at this smiley face. Do you see that?
MARSHALL: Ted, buddy, listen. My homegrown midwestern good horse sense is finely tuned tonight, and I can tell you that the smiley face there is nothing more than a "shucks-a-gimmee."
TED: I don't understand your ways, sir. I don't know what that means.
(VOICE-OVER): Marshall understood it better than I did. You see, 15 years ago when we were all just teenagers, there was one girl in class that everybody loved. Her name was Mazzie, and she was the first goth in Minnesota. She would put smiley faces on all the notes from all the boys and girls who wanted her, and that smiley face meant "give me death."
FLASHBACK:
MARSHALL gets a note from the GOTH GIRL, who smiles at him, and then spits out nails and blood.
BACK TO SCENE:
TED: I had no idea a smiley face meant she wants to spit blood at me.
MARSHALL: Ted, chicks always want to spit blood, we're lucky when they don't. And when they don't, buddy, it's magic. That's what I have with Lily.
TED: Oh, fuck off. Just fuck off.
(Long bro silence. He keeps looking at his phone.)
TED: On October 21st, the day after I did a voodoo spell on her hair, she wrote me this..."Hahaha, I don't know what's wrong with me today, my head is full of xs and os." Right there, that means she wants to make out. And I missed it.
MARSHALL: I wonder if Lily ever did voodoo on me.
TED: And right here, the day after that, she wrote this, look, this is at 7 in the morning, she's never up at 7 in the morning, she must have been sleepless, thinking about me.
BARNEY: Or still up from the night before, doing the "wah-wah-wah," with a coupla strangers, what?
TED: She writes: "You and I will never be able to wear the same clothes."
MARSHALL: Lily always wears my clothes, like she wants to possess me, possess my very soul.
TED: That sounds bad, but it's not, because of what we were talking about the week before, really, this is very sweet. Wow, she always loved me.
MARSHALL: I don't think I ever really loved her, I think she has a doll that looks like me in her purse and she makes me do things that I wouldn't do, like pretend that I'm not Jewish.
TED: I understand what it is she wants now, I understand for the very first time. (He goes out looking for her.)
BARNEY plays with a bottle of ketchup, squirting it on all the guests. Haha, that Barney.
And MARSHALL is very upset, and planning revenge against the one who betrayed him with her dark dark magic.
And scene.
This night, TED is so busy not looking at all of his text messages from the last few months, that he is almost convinced to himself that none of anything really mattered all that much. Having become recently Buddhist, he is not attached to anything. But he's reading, oh, he's really reading, he's looking for secret signs.
TED (looking at his phone): Right here, this one right here, look at this smiley face. Do you see that?
MARSHALL: Ted, buddy, listen. My homegrown midwestern good horse sense is finely tuned tonight, and I can tell you that the smiley face there is nothing more than a "shucks-a-gimmee."
TED: I don't understand your ways, sir. I don't know what that means.
(VOICE-OVER): Marshall understood it better than I did. You see, 15 years ago when we were all just teenagers, there was one girl in class that everybody loved. Her name was Mazzie, and she was the first goth in Minnesota. She would put smiley faces on all the notes from all the boys and girls who wanted her, and that smiley face meant "give me death."
FLASHBACK:
MARSHALL gets a note from the GOTH GIRL, who smiles at him, and then spits out nails and blood.
BACK TO SCENE:
TED: I had no idea a smiley face meant she wants to spit blood at me.
MARSHALL: Ted, chicks always want to spit blood, we're lucky when they don't. And when they don't, buddy, it's magic. That's what I have with Lily.
TED: Oh, fuck off. Just fuck off.
(Long bro silence. He keeps looking at his phone.)
TED: On October 21st, the day after I did a voodoo spell on her hair, she wrote me this..."Hahaha, I don't know what's wrong with me today, my head is full of xs and os." Right there, that means she wants to make out. And I missed it.
MARSHALL: I wonder if Lily ever did voodoo on me.
TED: And right here, the day after that, she wrote this, look, this is at 7 in the morning, she's never up at 7 in the morning, she must have been sleepless, thinking about me.
BARNEY: Or still up from the night before, doing the "wah-wah-wah," with a coupla strangers, what?
TED: She writes: "You and I will never be able to wear the same clothes."
MARSHALL: Lily always wears my clothes, like she wants to possess me, possess my very soul.
TED: That sounds bad, but it's not, because of what we were talking about the week before, really, this is very sweet. Wow, she always loved me.
MARSHALL: I don't think I ever really loved her, I think she has a doll that looks like me in her purse and she makes me do things that I wouldn't do, like pretend that I'm not Jewish.
TED: I understand what it is she wants now, I understand for the very first time. (He goes out looking for her.)
BARNEY plays with a bottle of ketchup, squirting it on all the guests. Haha, that Barney.
And MARSHALL is very upset, and planning revenge against the one who betrayed him with her dark dark magic.
And scene.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
this got a little weird
This might be just a little confusing.
This was a performance that I didn't intend.
And the documentation here is hard to read, the images don't ever really resolve, and there's video, but I don't know who has it, or where it is.
This might be better than anything I could have intended, though, because something happened that turned my head somewhere else, something happened that I wasn't expecting.
There's an event here, it's in a lot of places, it's not just here, there's an event, First Friday, it happens the first Friday of every month, and it's estimated that 14,000 people come out for this.
The galleries are open and there are food trucks and there are people selling art on the street (old men selling hand carved toy coffins with carved skeletons inside for $15, kids spray painting cardboard with stars for $10, and people at tables selling hand-made jewelry for $175.
It's unusual for Phoenix because people don't go out and see things. As a general rule, it's one of the hardest big cities to live in if you do anything that involves an audience. People stay in because everything is too far away, and everything is suburbs, and everyone in the suburbs thinks that it's dangerous downtown. (I live downtown, and have only been robbed with a rifle once, when I was sitting on my porch smoking a cigar).
This happened on Friday, March 1st, my friend Lance Gharavi was given Pop-Up Park (a park on 2nd Street and Roosevelt), to do a live performance event. This was during the Emerge Conference (an ASU event where scientists and artists mix their heads all up in each other and make things and
talk about potential things they could make, for three days); so there would be people coming
from Tempe to Phoenix to see whatever we did in the park, and there would be some
other people from the general public who might stop by.
And this is where things went so very different.
First, I want to say that I really did think that I would be in a corner where no one could see unless they were looking very closely. There would be a dj by the street, and my friend, Chelsea Pace, would be performing in a central spot, and I had this idea that I would be doing yoga in a little corner of the park, some place that no one would see.
I really didn't think this through.
The rite to Eurydice was something in my head, I figured if anyone happened to find it interesting to watch for a minute or two, they wouldn't know the context, and it might not matter. I would keep busy doing yoga poses and that would give anyone passing by a sense that movement was happening. I really didn't have very much planned out except for this.
So, I met some friends there, and my roommate said he'd be close by just in case someone in the crowd decided to attack me for some reason, with a rifle or whatever, and I laid down the white sheet and made the grave, and put on my iPod, and sat on the grave and did some deep breathing for a long time.
And it was terribly, terribly alarming, really, when I opened my eyes, because there were hundreds of people standing in a circle around me.
Apparently Phoenix is really hungry for live performance, and that was exhilarating, and it was also interesting trying to keep my pulse going very slow, because I was not really thinking about graves and longing for a mythic lover at all, but really more focused on the idea that I had not planned this out very well. I suspected that if I did yoga, they would catch on pretty quickly that there wasn't much thought put into this, and they would move on, and I decided that it would be all right if they did move on, but it might be a lot nicer if they didn't, so I started focusing again on the idea of the grave and missing someone, and my movements got very slow, and the music took me away from everything, and soon I was trying to eat dirt, spitting out beet juice, and focusing on moving in the way that I move when I am trying not to weep, to move from a place of very deep mourning. And I also decided to move from a spiritual part of me that I usually keep very hidden, because it is not quite secret, not quite public, but vulnerable, sure, but it seemed like the right thing to do.
Apparently it was right, if there is a right to these things, because I eventually did three versions of this rite, each one lasting about 45 minutes, and I understand that most people stayed the whole time each time. And some goth kids came back at the end of the night because they wanted to know more about what the hell this was. And because it's Phoenix, there were some people who thought it was just crazy (and a little cold for sure), some who thought it was mesmerizing and didn't know why, and some who thought it was nice to see performance art in their city for a change (and I'm sure there were some who thought it was stupid, or narcissistic, or pretentious, and it's probably all these things and none of them and maybe it does not matter so much).
What excited me the most was that although I've done lots of performances and am not shy, this was by far the most exposed I've ever felt, and for the first time I didn't have a script, or a stack of poems, or any projection, no media at all except for an ipod that was just for me, just a body in space, one that could not speak above a whisper, and tons of people. It's likely that most of them never heard of Orpheus & Eurydice, but it's certain that they know what it means to mourn somebody and miss somebody, because everybody misses somebody. That's what makes us like phantoms, that's something phantoms have in common.
(this next bit is really not part of the thing for Transart, so if you're reading this with Transart vision, you can stop now)
(but if you want to read...)
(this next part is written after the performance, and is where I'm being a good researcher, and writing a phenomenological response to the performance, and also connecting it to the piece I'm starting to work on for Transart/Plymouth. After doing the performance, I realize that the next piece will have more to do with Orpheus and Eurydice than I had realized)
((anyway, cheers, and thanks for reading....xo's....))
This is a scene for an elevator, where Ted is trying to tell Robin about his recent turn to performance art (keeping with the Ted & Robin thing here because I can talk about things that are very personal and think that no one knows what I'm talking about, but it's also going into a play, so it's really just me making art and nothing more than that). ((So stop reading into it)).. (((Honestly, I don't know who that last comment was for, I think it was for me)))...
This is a scene in an elevator, and no one really looks who they are supposed to pretend to be. It all looks a little fucked up. Even the elevator is fucked up, it's very old fashioned, one of those pre-electricity elevators, before stairs even, this elevator is really a rock. Ted is talking to Robin on a rock and it's very heartfelt so watch out, this will be terribly confessional.
TED: (this is a ted talk) You would think, you would really have to think, or I would have to think, you know, being on a white sheet in a loin cloth in front of hundreds of people when it's cold, rolling around and pouring blood out of my mouth and listening to headphones, that I would be a little, you know, "I think this might be the most self-absorbed thing I've ever done, and to anyone who doesn't really know me, this would be, you know, crazy, that I look crazy," is how I would think I would feel, except no, except not at all, except no, not at all. There was something else. I was Orpheus, a skeleton of him, missing Eurydice, and she was underneath the ground, and we were both dead and we were on the opposite side of the worlds, and it was about missing somebody, it was like that. Don't look at me like that, this wasn't about you, I wasn't thinking about you, not at all, except in this way of like, well, you're a lot of people, you are a lot of people to me, and I was missing that, and while I was missing that, these other people were watching and they were seeing themselves missing someone in all of it, so it was one of those kinds of things, where you take on what they give you and return it in some kind of series of ritual actions and the blood is like a purging. But it's not real blood. It's not my blood, it's not her blood, and it's not chicken blood, although, of course, the people who don't know me, they were thinking that it could be any of those things, and probably was something very dark, but really, it wasn't dark, it was beet juice, which is healthy. Because, really, maybe three years ago, it might have been chicken blood, but that's not really appropriate for a park. Not with kids and old people. I mean, I will do these things, because this is what I know how to do, but I can do them so they are healthy, so something gets awoken in them, and something is cleaned in me. This is exciting to me. What we can do to each other in public spaces. But the part I wanted to tell you, after I covered myself in small pieces of bloody cloth, covering and cleaning all of my wounds, I put my face on the ground, on the sheet on the ground, and that's when I started to think about you, this was the first time in the performance that I thought about you. Because it was a trance, and because it wasn't a live human acting, it was all impulse, I started to chew on the ground, to try to chew the ground beneath the sheet, and my teeth couldn't get a grip on the ground, and it was endless and fruitless and wasted, it was a wasted action, except not at all wasted. Because it told me what I wanted to do, where my heart lives right now, I want to touch you with my mouth but there is all of this grave trappings in the way, and it's a meal that I cannot have, apparently, apparently I cannot eat, I want to eat but I can't eat, and that's where I live. Which will be either terribly disturbing or terribly sweet, depending on how you feel about me, and that's something that I'm not allowed to know, apparently. But for me, I know, I know that, and it's not terribly revealing, really, to say that at the root of all of this is this strange recognition of a whole bunch of ancestors underneath all of this, under my clothes, under your clothes, we're not unclothed but utterly naked in the presence of other spirits, those who came before, and for whatever reason, they are speaking, and they are speaking of holiness and that same fire of hunger that was there at the beginning of everything. Except when you live forward in time, in time that moves forward, there are all the usual confusions that go with living in a body with memories and children and lovers and burials, except, the second layer of except is more than the first, except. When you live in the circle, in time that moves in a circle, there is no death, only birth, one birth that leads naturally into the next birth, and I am starting to see for the very first time that these metaphors for birth really don't refer to the physical act of birth, of being born, because our own physical birth is already a metaphor for something else, some very important secret that can only be answered in being born.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
the love bar/3
(Meanwhile. BARNEY is on a terrible bender and is making balloon animals out of condoms, and popping them with his formidable cigar. The space should smell of that stuff they put inside those things. And everyone should be a little sticky.)
(TED, meanwhile, has been on a spiritual pilgrimage, and has renounced his endless hunger for money, which has made all of his love so very vapid. He started the pilgrimage to make room for the perfect match for him, but instead has found a deep serenity within, and no longer wants to attach to anything or anyone. He wears long robes, and is becoming very quiet.)
(MARSHALL and LILY, meanwhile. They have recently gotten back from their extremely expensive third honeymoon, where they spent three weeks in Rio, and joined a Furry cult on the beach there. Now they wear animal clothes and hats with very long ears, and quote Japanese pop culture when they want to express anything other than furry sexuality. It makes everyone very uncomfortable.)
(ROBIN, meanwhile. Politicized by the Indigenous Rights movements in her native-sic-homeland, has also thrown off her desire for money and power, and sees that her liberation is tied to her involvement in the liberation of the First Nations.)
(Also, it's happy hour, and there are two for one shots. Go.)
(TED, meanwhile, has been on a spiritual pilgrimage, and has renounced his endless hunger for money, which has made all of his love so very vapid. He started the pilgrimage to make room for the perfect match for him, but instead has found a deep serenity within, and no longer wants to attach to anything or anyone. He wears long robes, and is becoming very quiet.)
(MARSHALL and LILY, meanwhile. They have recently gotten back from their extremely expensive third honeymoon, where they spent three weeks in Rio, and joined a Furry cult on the beach there. Now they wear animal clothes and hats with very long ears, and quote Japanese pop culture when they want to express anything other than furry sexuality. It makes everyone very uncomfortable.)
(ROBIN, meanwhile. Politicized by the Indigenous Rights movements in her native-sic-homeland, has also thrown off her desire for money and power, and sees that her liberation is tied to her involvement in the liberation of the First Nations.)
(Also, it's happy hour, and there are two for one shots. Go.)
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
the love bar / next
ROBIN: I've been feeling so gloomy lately.
TED: Is it because you secretly know that you and I will get back together, and all of this is just a lie until then?
ROBIN: Hahaha, you're so funny and damaged, Ted. No, it's because I met a wonderful guy and he's gone away, to Minsk, to work on some secret government program.
LILY (making one of her inimitable faces; she also sounds like she's trying to sound black most of the time, but it's not offensive at all): I think you are confused, my dear.
MARSHALL: That's a whole different show entirely! Hahaha! (He makes a weird goofy sound) Uh-oh, I just laughed so hard a booger came out!
LILY (inimitably) Booger!
(They all laugh and they laugh.)
(Then the BARKEEP, a woman, comes over.)
BARKEEP: Why don't you call me, Barney, are you too busy with your penis?
BARNEY: My penis is salty, like kelp.
LILY: I don't know what that even means.
MARSHALL: I think you mean chard. Everyone is eating organic chard in our neighborhood.
LILY: Oh, boy, and is it ever salty!
BARNEY: Salty chard, salty salty. Penis boobs and big screen tvs.
ROBIN: There's something in my soul that's wrong. There's a lighthouse somewhere in me, something that goes on when it's very, very dark. It's something like a light that recognizes things when they are happening, and when it's on, I can feel it, every time, when it's on, I know that things are going to become very dark, and the people around me who looked like they knew me will show themselves as nothing but phantoms, absolutely terrified and absolutely asleep. And the world gets a little bit colder, because all of the things I ever wanted are not meant to be.
BARNEY: I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was sitting next to gloomy gus. Hey, guys! High five, I just remembered my penis again!
TED: We were meant to be.
MARSHALL: No, you weren't, Ted, listen, sing a bro song with me.
(Top hat and coat, song and dance, a song about time escaping through the edges of our fingernails, and no one remembers when they felt young, because we all feel so old.)
Time escapes and death comes quick and beauty fades and we are all just phantoms. (and so on and so forth.)
LILY: I'm not showing anyone my boobs.
(Long pause, no one asked. This is suddenly so very awkward, especially after such an amazing bro dance number.)
ROBIN: If he never returns from Minsk, I'll still wait for him, and grow so very old, and there will be nothing left of me to give, but no one will ask, time is not mine, it's all only borrowed, and I am heavy with the....
TED: ...with the hundred loves who crucified me.
ROBIN: Yes.
(Their eyes meet, they recognize each other, this is a moment, it's sudden and it's fierce and it's got them in its jaws, and it shakes them until all of their desire comes bleeding out and they fall on each other like wounded soldiers.)
BARNEY: My penis. My white plume. My jar of absinthe. And my horrible angry soul.
(And LILY and MARSHALL look toward the future with hope, so unaware that they are already dead. And so it is at the Love Bar on another cold night.)
TED: Is it because you secretly know that you and I will get back together, and all of this is just a lie until then?
ROBIN: Hahaha, you're so funny and damaged, Ted. No, it's because I met a wonderful guy and he's gone away, to Minsk, to work on some secret government program.
LILY (making one of her inimitable faces; she also sounds like she's trying to sound black most of the time, but it's not offensive at all): I think you are confused, my dear.
MARSHALL: That's a whole different show entirely! Hahaha! (He makes a weird goofy sound) Uh-oh, I just laughed so hard a booger came out!
LILY (inimitably) Booger!
(They all laugh and they laugh.)
(Then the BARKEEP, a woman, comes over.)
BARKEEP: Why don't you call me, Barney, are you too busy with your penis?
BARNEY: My penis is salty, like kelp.
LILY: I don't know what that even means.
MARSHALL: I think you mean chard. Everyone is eating organic chard in our neighborhood.
LILY: Oh, boy, and is it ever salty!
BARNEY: Salty chard, salty salty. Penis boobs and big screen tvs.
ROBIN: There's something in my soul that's wrong. There's a lighthouse somewhere in me, something that goes on when it's very, very dark. It's something like a light that recognizes things when they are happening, and when it's on, I can feel it, every time, when it's on, I know that things are going to become very dark, and the people around me who looked like they knew me will show themselves as nothing but phantoms, absolutely terrified and absolutely asleep. And the world gets a little bit colder, because all of the things I ever wanted are not meant to be.
BARNEY: I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was sitting next to gloomy gus. Hey, guys! High five, I just remembered my penis again!
TED: We were meant to be.
MARSHALL: No, you weren't, Ted, listen, sing a bro song with me.
(Top hat and coat, song and dance, a song about time escaping through the edges of our fingernails, and no one remembers when they felt young, because we all feel so old.)
Time escapes and death comes quick and beauty fades and we are all just phantoms. (and so on and so forth.)
LILY: I'm not showing anyone my boobs.
(Long pause, no one asked. This is suddenly so very awkward, especially after such an amazing bro dance number.)
ROBIN: If he never returns from Minsk, I'll still wait for him, and grow so very old, and there will be nothing left of me to give, but no one will ask, time is not mine, it's all only borrowed, and I am heavy with the....
TED: ...with the hundred loves who crucified me.
ROBIN: Yes.
(Their eyes meet, they recognize each other, this is a moment, it's sudden and it's fierce and it's got them in its jaws, and it shakes them until all of their desire comes bleeding out and they fall on each other like wounded soldiers.)
BARNEY: My penis. My white plume. My jar of absinthe. And my horrible angry soul.
(And LILY and MARSHALL look toward the future with hope, so unaware that they are already dead. And so it is at the Love Bar on another cold night.)
Monday, February 25, 2013
the love bar
They're in a bar, a love bar, it's the bar, the bar, the bar where they love, they talk about love in the bar of love.
One
BARNEY: Check it, three twins last night. High five. There were five and then there was me.
ROBIN: Six.
BARNEY: I beg your pardon, hottie?
(Laughs)
ROBIN: There were six, if there were three twins, there were six.
BARNEY: Yeah, but one got away.
(Laughs)
TED: There's always one that gets away.
MARSHALL: Don't go there, Ted. Getting all scheezie-meezie.
LILY: Schweezie-meezie!
(M&L make out on the table, lots and lots of tongue, it's so funny that they break character.)
MARSHALL: Can we take that again?
DIRECTOR: (He slaps his head, this is outrageous) Cut!
Two
TED: There's always one that gets away.
MARSHALL: Don't go there, Ted. Getting all scheezie-meezie.
LILY: Schweezie-meezie!
(M&L make out on the table, lots and lots of tongue)
ROBIN (sings, like a bird): Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.
(They all join in the song, like birds.)
Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.
(This turns into a very elaborate dance number, one that O will have to choreograph, and the dance number is bright and glittery, but just for a moment. Then, in mid-song):
TED: Every time I love, and lose, a part of me dies.
(Laughs)
TED: It's not funny.
(Laughs)
TED: It's just not very goddam funny at all.
(He gets so gloomy that they have to cut.)
DIRECTOR: Cut.
(The DIRECTOR is crying, because this is his story.)
Three
Dance number:
They Sing:
Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.
(This starts off all glitzy but then becomes a very slow dance of death.)
(In the end, no one is laughing because death is coming to claim them all.)
One
BARNEY: Check it, three twins last night. High five. There were five and then there was me.
ROBIN: Six.
BARNEY: I beg your pardon, hottie?
(Laughs)
ROBIN: There were six, if there were three twins, there were six.
BARNEY: Yeah, but one got away.
(Laughs)
TED: There's always one that gets away.
MARSHALL: Don't go there, Ted. Getting all scheezie-meezie.
LILY: Schweezie-meezie!
(M&L make out on the table, lots and lots of tongue, it's so funny that they break character.)
MARSHALL: Can we take that again?
DIRECTOR: (He slaps his head, this is outrageous) Cut!
Two
TED: There's always one that gets away.
MARSHALL: Don't go there, Ted. Getting all scheezie-meezie.
LILY: Schweezie-meezie!
(M&L make out on the table, lots and lots of tongue)
ROBIN (sings, like a bird): Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.
(They all join in the song, like birds.)
Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.
(This turns into a very elaborate dance number, one that O will have to choreograph, and the dance number is bright and glittery, but just for a moment. Then, in mid-song):
TED: Every time I love, and lose, a part of me dies.
(Laughs)
TED: It's not funny.
(Laughs)
TED: It's just not very goddam funny at all.
(He gets so gloomy that they have to cut.)
DIRECTOR: Cut.
(The DIRECTOR is crying, because this is his story.)
Three
Dance number:
They Sing:
Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.Schweezie, and meezie, a-schweezie and a-meezie.
(This starts off all glitzy but then becomes a very slow dance of death.)
(In the end, no one is laughing because death is coming to claim them all.)
Saturday, February 23, 2013
suits
and then i am haunted by dreams of men in suits.
men in suits at the airport, trying to push me through the security gates, because they are in more of a hurry, and they have to hurry, and there are men in suits around the airport who are wondering what i am doing there. i'm just driving a truck into the airport zoo so i can look around while i wait to go to another country. they're watching, and they're trying to push, but they don't do anything but make me aware of the men in suits.
and then i'm in a hospital somewhere, it's all a mistake, no one is sick, no one is injured, it's a mistake, and i try to leave but end up in a classroom, one i'm in a lot, one where there is a lecture going on about something i'm very interested in, but i'm not supposed to be there, and the man in the suit is lecturing and he is irritated with me and wants me not there. more men in suits, they are all white men in suits trying to get me to do things. this is why i became a punk rocker when i was young, this is why i'm all like this now. goddam white men in suits.
men in suits at the airport, trying to push me through the security gates, because they are in more of a hurry, and they have to hurry, and there are men in suits around the airport who are wondering what i am doing there. i'm just driving a truck into the airport zoo so i can look around while i wait to go to another country. they're watching, and they're trying to push, but they don't do anything but make me aware of the men in suits.
and then i'm in a hospital somewhere, it's all a mistake, no one is sick, no one is injured, it's a mistake, and i try to leave but end up in a classroom, one i'm in a lot, one where there is a lecture going on about something i'm very interested in, but i'm not supposed to be there, and the man in the suit is lecturing and he is irritated with me and wants me not there. more men in suits, they are all white men in suits trying to get me to do things. this is why i became a punk rocker when i was young, this is why i'm all like this now. goddam white men in suits.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
on that night
when no one remembered any of the rules,
and time was running out,
and there wasn't enough space in the world to contain
what wanted to be contained,
and there wasn't enough time
to kiss like people do,
or a working methodology that worked
for the time that was running out,
and the only one who knew anything for sure,
was the wind.
and i fell asleep wondering how i
might learn how to trust the wind.
and the long nights that came after
that one night, the ones where
the sheets were wondering who was dreaming who,
and when these anxious turns might resolve
into something that resembled a story
that had a metaphor and a rhythm,
and the days were interrupted by
those urgent things that wanted to be born,
and the wind was turning it back,
poor imitations of seasons, floods that receded
before anything got really cleaned,
and snow that was only a pale imitation,
until the same wind went to sleep,
too embarrassed to admit that it didn't
know, had no idea, what the rules
might be, or how any of this would play out
after the season settled in on itself,
and let people start to make their homes there.
and on this night, in between seasons,
in between one wind and another,
i hear myself speaking in voices
that do not belong to me. trying this
one out, to see if it fits, and throwing it
off to try another, they all have loose threads
that do not have anything to do with this.
and i hide in western philosophy,
diagrams of desire, and the threads of those
things that czech writer said, before his
country turned into someone else's.
before the winds changed the lines again,
and made this into something that it never
used to be.
and i'm discovered by spirits of western
africa, and the mothers of the waters,
who tell me that this moon in my fingernail
is more than just a reflection, and the one
who owns the wind, she tells me my blood
is being stilled before a peculiar sea change,
and everything is about to rise to the
surface, but first i'll have to lose my faith
in these things i cannot see.
and i pull the sheets tighter, and tell her
that i want to believe her, but no longer
think i do, even though i am always
wrong, and she never stops beating at
my chest, she wants me to remember
that she knows things that can only
last, the ones that start, that have their
birth, at the bottom of the river where
she used to live before she was born
in this place where we are all exiles.
and time was running out,
and there wasn't enough space in the world to contain
what wanted to be contained,
and there wasn't enough time
to kiss like people do,
or a working methodology that worked
for the time that was running out,
and the only one who knew anything for sure,
was the wind.
and i fell asleep wondering how i
might learn how to trust the wind.
and the long nights that came after
that one night, the ones where
the sheets were wondering who was dreaming who,
and when these anxious turns might resolve
into something that resembled a story
that had a metaphor and a rhythm,
and the days were interrupted by
those urgent things that wanted to be born,
and the wind was turning it back,
poor imitations of seasons, floods that receded
before anything got really cleaned,
and snow that was only a pale imitation,
until the same wind went to sleep,
too embarrassed to admit that it didn't
know, had no idea, what the rules
might be, or how any of this would play out
after the season settled in on itself,
and let people start to make their homes there.
and on this night, in between seasons,
in between one wind and another,
i hear myself speaking in voices
that do not belong to me. trying this
one out, to see if it fits, and throwing it
off to try another, they all have loose threads
that do not have anything to do with this.
and i hide in western philosophy,
diagrams of desire, and the threads of those
things that czech writer said, before his
country turned into someone else's.
before the winds changed the lines again,
and made this into something that it never
used to be.
and i'm discovered by spirits of western
africa, and the mothers of the waters,
who tell me that this moon in my fingernail
is more than just a reflection, and the one
who owns the wind, she tells me my blood
is being stilled before a peculiar sea change,
and everything is about to rise to the
surface, but first i'll have to lose my faith
in these things i cannot see.
and i pull the sheets tighter, and tell her
that i want to believe her, but no longer
think i do, even though i am always
wrong, and she never stops beating at
my chest, she wants me to remember
that she knows things that can only
last, the ones that start, that have their
birth, at the bottom of the river where
she used to live before she was born
in this place where we are all exiles.
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