This stanza, from a poem by Tracy K. Smith, arrests me. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it:
"If certain rooms smell of hyacinth
She has just been
Or will be
There. Like rain,
Arriving first in the mind."
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Ten Things I Love Friday
1) The New York Times (Especially the crossword.)
2) "500 Days of Summer" - This movie is just beautiful. Cinematography, soundtrack, story-line... I'm completely in love.
3) The Pixies! (Today, I can't stop listening to "Here Comes Your Man." Perhaps related to item #2 above.)
4) Karen O. in this music video ("Zero.") My "locomoting through the Mission" inspiration. Get your leather on!
5) Robin's egg blue nails. It's summer, ya'll.
6) Giant headphones. Insta-soundtrack wherever you are.
7) Steampunk paperbacks! Gail Carriger's trilogy is such a nice respite from thesis-writing. Brass parasols and aviator goggles included :)
8) Pin-up couture.
9) Tuning up the cruiser in time for good weather! Gotta get on this. It's been suffering away in a scary basement.
10) Roller derby! No throwing elbows. GOT IT?
And now, as it is my lunch break, I leave you to celebrate a combination of these things.
Happy Pride Weekend, San Francisco! Party time in .... 3, 2, 1!
Karen
2) "500 Days of Summer" - This movie is just beautiful. Cinematography, soundtrack, story-line... I'm completely in love.
3) The Pixies! (Today, I can't stop listening to "Here Comes Your Man." Perhaps related to item #2 above.)
4) Karen O. in this music video ("Zero.") My "locomoting through the Mission" inspiration. Get your leather on!
5) Robin's egg blue nails. It's summer, ya'll.
6) Giant headphones. Insta-soundtrack wherever you are.
7) Steampunk paperbacks! Gail Carriger's trilogy is such a nice respite from thesis-writing. Brass parasols and aviator goggles included :)
8) Pin-up couture.
9) Tuning up the cruiser in time for good weather! Gotta get on this. It's been suffering away in a scary basement.
10) Roller derby! No throwing elbows. GOT IT?
And now, as it is my lunch break, I leave you to celebrate a combination of these things.
Happy Pride Weekend, San Francisco! Party time in .... 3, 2, 1!
Karen
Friday, June 18, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
A Dream Experiment in Sixteen Parts
1.
Sometimes we speak over one another: other people (girls, friends.) She is already sitting, her eye through the crack. My foot and then my whole body. Looking at the shut bedroom door.
Dinner will be ready soon. Who paid for my plane ticket here? I’ll be right down.
2.
I am watching us.
I hide behind my blue backpack. Shot man, an actor, my lover. He holds a woman named Mix and Mom’s coming, my teeth in an envelope in her purse.
It’s pantomime.
3.
Get down (a name starting with the letter “L”) down on the floor. An unseen dinner.
Stupid – no lock on the door.
The steps now a raft, they are making an apartment visible within.
4.
I’m a little girl. Another girl, beside the bed. The door isn’t shut all the way.
On all sides, the color yellow.
A man grabbing at my badge. A strange acting style. This is a big deal.
5.
The dialogue between a dying man and me.
Weight. Sex.
I was a little girl but a mystery.
Nick’s grey rib-knit sweater. You know what I like. Cars racing.
6.
I carry some leftovers from a second dream, a hatch high-up.
Not helping us because I don’t know the role. Take me to another tier.
“Will he die here?” And not wanting to look.
7.
I wasn’t feeling well. In my bed, nervous. Lula sweating in my arms.
Sister, me, how do we get up?
Mother, collector of my teeth. How are they inserted? One by one.
8.
Wondering – will they stay and kiss him?
A large sparkling locket in his hand.
No one thinks while togas change to ruffled ball gowns.
In this moment: Going inside, strongly present.
9.
Me. I pretend to be early evening in front of them.
I can’t remember this now, can’t navigate to figure it out.
Imagining fake teeth – Big George Washington Grin. Now he is my brother.
10.
Watching movies somewhere. There is another woman in the scene, silent. Imagines lighting cigarettes.
Block the door. Knocking. “Let your daughter in.”
Overblown. Bedroom is the horror of
11.
We are surrounded and scrambling to get dressed. A joke made to the shut door. “Came in here to check on” is awkwardly improvised.
Looking up on the hatch, but instead he’s underneath the comforter.
12.
Up a flight of stairs. Point of view kind of like Nancy Drew.
I have déjà vu: Teeth falling out back to front. “Dream,” I think briefly.
A mother and daughter, their front porch and commenting.
13.
I jump and jump, make a big show out of not seeing the rotating locket.
This is of the theatre. It was at my parents’ house.
Switches. Leaning over the ship’s deck.
14.
She puts my teeth in an envelope in the wall. Push the door shut, hard.
A tiny dog runs out. Tell her to bury her face in his fur.
Something shifts – Onstage now, he tells me to break into the bank.
15.
Dad drives me and my envelope full of teeth down an Italian alley. He explains why, with accents and inflections not mine.
Picking up my bag which is out of reach. Playing a part last minute is just too much.
16.
The show – so good tonight, because she has no idea what’s going on. Behind the mother, a weird amalgam of rooms I’ve had.
With the dog at the house for dinner.
We are the melodramatic women on brightly lit docks.
Sometimes we speak over one another: other people (girls, friends.) She is already sitting, her eye through the crack. My foot and then my whole body. Looking at the shut bedroom door.
Dinner will be ready soon. Who paid for my plane ticket here? I’ll be right down.
2.
I am watching us.
I hide behind my blue backpack. Shot man, an actor, my lover. He holds a woman named Mix and Mom’s coming, my teeth in an envelope in her purse.
It’s pantomime.
3.
Get down (a name starting with the letter “L”) down on the floor. An unseen dinner.
Stupid – no lock on the door.
The steps now a raft, they are making an apartment visible within.
4.
I’m a little girl. Another girl, beside the bed. The door isn’t shut all the way.
On all sides, the color yellow.
A man grabbing at my badge. A strange acting style. This is a big deal.
5.
The dialogue between a dying man and me.
Weight. Sex.
I was a little girl but a mystery.
Nick’s grey rib-knit sweater. You know what I like. Cars racing.
6.
I carry some leftovers from a second dream, a hatch high-up.
Not helping us because I don’t know the role. Take me to another tier.
“Will he die here?” And not wanting to look.
7.
I wasn’t feeling well. In my bed, nervous. Lula sweating in my arms.
Sister, me, how do we get up?
Mother, collector of my teeth. How are they inserted? One by one.
8.
Wondering – will they stay and kiss him?
A large sparkling locket in his hand.
No one thinks while togas change to ruffled ball gowns.
In this moment: Going inside, strongly present.
9.
Me. I pretend to be early evening in front of them.
I can’t remember this now, can’t navigate to figure it out.
Imagining fake teeth – Big George Washington Grin. Now he is my brother.
10.
Watching movies somewhere. There is another woman in the scene, silent. Imagines lighting cigarettes.
Block the door. Knocking. “Let your daughter in.”
Overblown. Bedroom is the horror of
11.
We are surrounded and scrambling to get dressed. A joke made to the shut door. “Came in here to check on” is awkwardly improvised.
Looking up on the hatch, but instead he’s underneath the comforter.
12.
Up a flight of stairs. Point of view kind of like Nancy Drew.
I have déjà vu: Teeth falling out back to front. “Dream,” I think briefly.
A mother and daughter, their front porch and commenting.
13.
I jump and jump, make a big show out of not seeing the rotating locket.
This is of the theatre. It was at my parents’ house.
Switches. Leaning over the ship’s deck.
14.
She puts my teeth in an envelope in the wall. Push the door shut, hard.
A tiny dog runs out. Tell her to bury her face in his fur.
Something shifts – Onstage now, he tells me to break into the bank.
15.
Dad drives me and my envelope full of teeth down an Italian alley. He explains why, with accents and inflections not mine.
Picking up my bag which is out of reach. Playing a part last minute is just too much.
16.
The show – so good tonight, because she has no idea what’s going on. Behind the mother, a weird amalgam of rooms I’ve had.
With the dog at the house for dinner.
We are the melodramatic women on brightly lit docks.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
A Rad Poem Not By Me
a classical education can’t save you from the radio
by Sarah Barber
I looked up sky. I blued, obscured.
You were nowhere in my dictionary.
And the birds gave up reciting
their foreign vocabularies.
The clouds broke off their pas de deux.
Do do. The world is full of spit.
The sun’s just a French pop song.
Do do, you do, you don’t, you did
decline the thunderstorm, the chorus
girl and all her words for weepy.
by Sarah Barber
I looked up sky. I blued, obscured.
You were nowhere in my dictionary.
And the birds gave up reciting
their foreign vocabularies.
The clouds broke off their pas de deux.
Do do. The world is full of spit.
The sun’s just a French pop song.
Do do, you do, you don’t, you did
decline the thunderstorm, the chorus
girl and all her words for weepy.
Monday, June 14, 2010
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