Dust falls like words, whose

shadows, shadowy images

distend the dawn

You do not know how

our life is claimed

by my memories

that you cannot see

My small self crouches there

in a wet, shrunken 

world

Burning like litanies

to firedrakes

tending volcanoes

bridging basalt

Beyond the imagined fire

is hurt, sharp

as cold

My father told me stories

of courage and justice

that I remembered 

long after he forgot

Stories you never knew

now you can never color

in your own childhood

with brave human love

Volcano mouths close

easy as eyes, memory

makes of us a midden

_

Actually, intellect

Last night I dreamt I was at a party with Tom Stoppard. 

Um. Actually, I was married to him and he was alternately showing me off, arm-candy style, while also patronizing me in an arch, I-can-only-describe-it-as-British way. I, correspondingly, alternated between blase indifference and intense irritation leavened with the odd moments of begrudging astonishment at his always breathtaking wit.

At some point in our private conversation (albeit conducted in the presence of a highly interested audience), he told me that theater was sometimes "converse prose," and I woke up clutching that strange phrase like a talisman rubbed raw.

When I told Big A, he said, 

Well, you've always been good at crushing on elderly intellectuals.

I wonder how intellectual I look when my mouth is hanging open.

__

TO, FROM

Morning’s journey through the smoke of birds,

the flat sheets of faded sky, is mine alone

but my small companions also wake early

to be fed and bundled for the day

the scent, strength, and reach of their arms

tucked into my head. We move ahead.

 

And though I may seem to—

No. Do forget to chart or care

about them under the stern pace

of university windows and computer screens

like differently uniformed, shutter-eyed guards,

I captain this journey too, alone. Too alone.

 

But the mornings, getting to there--

It might as well be that it is

her dimpled fists that grasp the wheel 

his bejewelled eyes that watch the road.

their voices and breaths that map me

as I make my way. Make my way away.

_

NIGHT TRIPPING

Threads like

nerves like roads

like pathways

 

stars like

chinks like holes

like winks

 

children like

dolls like bodies

like souls

 

journeys like

hope like ends

like tension

 

Like like

click like love

like how

(About FB)

OVERHEARD (YSWC Day 2)

 

 

It’s different here she asserts

it’s cold in here he insists

 

have you eaten? (she)

I had to turn the heat on in the house today (he)

 

I’m going out of town this week (he)

See, I—(she)

 

I’m visiting my son in Cincinatti (h)

Yes, you said so this morning (s)

 

I like travelling (h)

I do too. (s) (I do too.)

 

Where is the-- (mumble)

You could look in the-- (something)

 

Don’t worry about it.

_

YSWC (Day One)

exciting

lightning

 

like flash

like forward

 

like brilliance

and burn.

 

torque

makes of torture

talk

like revolutions. 

_

Zizek describes the Israeli occupation as Kafkaesque

He misspells Saree Makdisi. But nevermind that, he says this: 

On Israel’s end, what goes on is the incessant slow work of taking the land from the Palestinians in the West Bank: the gradual strangling of the Palestinian economy, the parcelling of their land, the building of new settlements, the pressure on farmers to make them abandon their land—all supported by a Kafkaesque network of legal regulations.

I'm still puzzling out this sign-off statement which has the ambitious glaze of greatness about it: 

And, to avoid any kind of misunderstanding, taking all this into account in no way implies an “understanding” for inexcusable terrorist acts. On the contrary, it provides the only ground from which one can condemn the terrorist attacks without hypocrisy.

The "only" ground? Is he sure? There appears to be plenty of other "grounds" for condemnation.

_