Sunday, July 30, 2006

did it in 35:18

most unexpected: realizing my deep littering taboo. post mile 2 gatorade sip and toss, kept asking my mates, "are you sure we throw the cups on the ground?"

note: get some sunglasses

Friday, July 28, 2006

Feeling ready for Sunday’s 5K only I had to see an interactive graphic this morning on the BBC of the body’s gradual disintegration into heat stroke. And then local alarm on the radio all morning about the HEAT DOOM upon us from now until Tuesday. And everyone I see lately is in one of those black, velcro cast boots saying “running” and/or “surgery.” Within this nervosa I find lines read and misreading uplifting from the mighty Dusie Kollectiv chaps. Especially Kaia’s Heart on a Tripod. Maybe I’ll be cramping due to potassium loss mid kilometer and thinking “my last outlasts,” and how all “behavior [is] a clutter of blood,” or “a pox on the metric system.”

Thursday, July 27, 2006

last night's cooking class.. what's funny about making a meal with strangers is the wordless negotiation of who does what. tip: let the control freak blow out her tricep whisking the hollandaise sauce. i've got to return this haircut.. i don't recall asking for a mullet. i was slow to catch on, but it's worse than the last one that was also borderline m-bag.

oh librarianism

j confesses he's been listening to sufjian stevens.
"i think i like it."
"but why? it' so polyphonic spree."
"yeah, but it's really well-researched."

*

looking for a particular page on the website of the society of american archivists = "page not found"

Saturday, July 22, 2006


it’s noon and I want to know it.. briefly.. the trash is full.. and a tenor is visiting next door, sings, “pass the salt, por favori,” to which children squeal. got my license back in the mail with a receipt that looks like I just bought a carton of eggs, cat litter and bananas, except it says, “payment type—guilty.”

yesterday.. errand to the workplace on a day off.. staying unseen, get in a run, a snack with J at the Chicago Diner—note: fresh carrot-ginger juice, drink more of—presenting gifts marking the anniversary. Happy 6th! In honor of…how about some knife skills? Plus a class in hollandaise, lemon cake and curd. continued gastronomy later for a late, long meal at the italian restaurant where one time a bottle of red wine was uncorked all over my wedfrock was no stress or matter.. something to remember the day by, I’d thought… long wait at the bar in spite of reservations gave chance for chats with strangers from SoCal, a volunteer med team following a beach volleyball tournament presently in town. they’re glad for our 6 years and that Chicago isn’t too cold or hot. part of dinner became gratis from the manager because we had waited without being assy, so we added a few courses, including crème brulee and cognac like we never… it was later remarked that “we supped well”.. long walk home at midnight, post-rain 70 degrees. encountered out of place throng upon throng- had originally thought- what evacuees of the Gay Games are these? (since that’s been making crowds around us the past week).. turns out to be post-Bon-Jovi-goers Soldier Field let out.. became another interesting endeavor upstream.

just past noon today and walking toward a big fountain to look at people for a while.. as an aside, two boys are chasing each other across a stretch of lawn. Boy A chases Boy B until he hooks a foot in front of Boy B, sending him down. Boy A proceeds in kicking Boy B in the stomach. since I am walking, a hedge takes out my view of Boy B and I can only see the body of Boy A torquing with continued kicks. a small rat runs in front of me and into the obfuscating hedge where things are left off unceremoniously.

a sit, a walk, a bottle of water, another walk, another sit later, I am in my favorite spot since 1994 of fountains and low hanging, thorny trees on the AIC’s southern face. the light is always interesting on the ground beneath these trees, and it’s particularly good today. “It’s nice out here, isn’t it?” says a man in a cowboy hat as he hands me a leaflet about the price of my sins. I pretend not to speak English, but accept the leaflet anyway. he seems pleased/goes away. twelve students in a line with easels just drew this scene. the light is interesting today. a cardinal, but drab- a female- clips back and forth.. above a woman who works a kinetic pose of fun for someone with a camera.. swinging arms in slow-motion. people fascinate the shit out of me lately. J’s gotten extremely adept at pal'ing quickly with strangers. like after thursday night’s reading, all poets adjourned to the woodlawn pub and after a time I found him missing.. found him at the bar with another chap.. I’m greeted, “oh hi honey, this is eric. we were just talking about the holocaust.”

there’s the male cardinal now. somehow his brilliance is overtaken by the sunlight acting on the leaves. now someone is taking pictures of the twelve students drawing this scene. sometimes, who doesn’t need a break from reflexivity? so I pick at a little mandelstam, gide.

in the museum.. I’m here to see the Harry Callahan show.. even more exquisite than his prints is the one film he ever made, a 9 minute, 16 mm, black and white, silent montage called “Motions.” I’ll have to return to that. on my way out, a docent sounds abrasively- “he’s not telling us what to see, but how to see!”- in front of a monet waterlily.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

aspiration is just
an entendre in the shiny mind
go stand in
the weather underdressed
this is
could be anything
july

*

on the native, or is it on restoration?

the call of a species
saying maybe i will call you
saying maybe i will call you back

*

"welcome to positive self-esteem-land," checker shoe
"two hours is infinitely doable," (reply)

*

in the last few days..
reading Gide, watching the Third Man, watching a man on the train eat the biggest honeybun I've ever seen and then pull out of his bag The Art of War and read.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

around reading

after a week of job stressfest.. if this button doesn't do that "heads will roll"... yesterday four hours (round trip) on a train for caving surrounded by static conversations... teenage boys on "bitches," adults just on money.. how much does he/she have? how much is made? how much appreciation? j gives me a look that says never that-- and never hawaiian shirts (previously: "is that where the crazy goes?"). (misread) "my memory/is walking instead/of itself." question of the day: can i claim italian citizenship? the timing of great relations naturalization to look into. caught the last five minutes of bonnie and clyde. spelunked in an attraction where crowds of the 1940's snapped off small stalagtites for souveniers.. thinking they'd grow back soon. sooner than 40 million years. some mailed back, "apologies from mt. horeb." j: "i really hope i married an italian citizen and didn't know it." saw a performance piece about john wayne, cancer and gunplay. the shootist reminds me of the quietist, at least as words. (misread) "the largesse of empty slippers." stalagtites are hollow mineral formations that, when young, resemble a straw. driving on a non-descript country road, the person driving recalls a fatal crash he witnessed in that spot -"between the second and third telephone pole"- fifty years ago. but it's a religious country. "what do you call this?" if by religious you mean. "the firebug sets the pulpit ablaze."

(some quotes partially or in tact from warsh's chapbook "flight test.")

Monday, July 10, 2006

serious case of monday nacrolepsy--
strageties for staying awake:
up and walk the maze. up and get tea. climb stairs up five flights from lobby. go breathe in a bakery. read news articles/commentary about zidane. tell story of man in gold lame hotpants doing aerobics while reading the 20 Best Vegetables poster in the grocery store yesterday.

Friday, July 07, 2006

a Japanese expression- mono no aware- roughly the moving intimacy of things

and today still appalled at the bush scrape, and j lunching on a roof is buzzed by the slow and ominous 5 copter escort

it's like a monarchy, the ceremony of power

and my formalish lunch out with a department at a restaurant serving 3 portions for every one human- odd that no one saved anything, so much became waste

carried mine home and half a block from the site of last night's show of force someone asks me for money for something to eat..

no change

but 4 tortillas, a mess of vegetables and a nectarine

keep asking how writing can show the no-boundary of artmind and citizenry, whether to scream at tinted glass windows at injustice when it also implicates me -or if maintaining the attention toward the humane is adequately serving both principles

thinking of this and my working definition of the ecological poem: a text of interdependence aside from any mention of a blue-footed booby

Thursday, July 06, 2006

that's two politically visceral scrapes in as many days.. visceral, yes.. the skin crawls.. just walked out my front door to go to the store and walked into a roadblock and convoy of police.. just as the dogwalkers next to me said "the president" the limo with flags on it went by and parked.. pulled into a tent erected in the street a block away.. steak joint with the mayor.. one woman stood with a sign that said "liar" but the rest were curious, surprised and destination-oriented. after walking blocks out of my way, i stood across the street from the restaurant with my groceries, seeing if i could get past.. a most direct route with my bulbous mesh bag would have been preferred. fox news doing a live feed next to me, the shellacked correspondent asks some guy: "do you like the president?" "yeah, he's ok." and then passing me (agape) up for a woman who had outfitted her terrier in a flag hat who gushed "we live in the best country in the entire world and he's doing a great job!" i felt like i had just been punched. i did, at least, stagger through their shot.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

le sang d'un poete



making a beet-fennel-ginger soup
*
[certain associate] is amped about an upcoming night of yacht rock at the empty bottle.
[ca]: “it’s going to be great. [friend ten years younger]’s generation would hate it.”
“?”
[ca]: “they think irony is so passé.”
“you mean it’s all ours? awesome. i’ve been waiting for our defining thing.”
[breaks into song] “I’ve been waiting, for a girl like you, to come into my life.”
Haunted by conversations of 4 July party last night, at a friend’s house, the company of many various neighbors, schoolteachers telling me poems must rhyme, former soldiers telling me the papers lie/force and secrecy is right/Iraq was “fun.” Wishing I were home to write and watch Portugal v. France. Instead ran for 36 minutes at lunch, touched the city line. Weeding through old bugs, listening to Bach Suites for Solo Cello, not my usual worktronica, but in headphones I can hear the performer’s breathing complimenting the physicality of the cello, an instrument I’d like to learn more of than to simply hold. A certain human fragility audible there, in player and chord, that quiets my speculation over what a boy in a baseball cap eating a hot dog checking his voicemail talking about Vegas then war had done.

Monday, July 03, 2006

Would you politely move a spider?

how seriously I’m off to require
more access
more hours dreamt we met famously you
complete the mileage there align saline
clouds off my aim smell medical
I really don’t know how
a body removes timbres or gets up and stands still
Why I don’t don’t I? want

to work I think
mustaches fluctuate in time
looked nothing like you
about art, fighting words

ledge: I think we’re attached
I’m your covering-- matches

my breathing: Morton Feldman’s String Quartet (II) (1983)

Sunday, July 02, 2006

in case i was worried about what i would do with myself once the world cup is over, this looks like a fabulous timesink.. LibraryThing.. oh my weakness for things with thing in the title. what i really need is submissionthing, grantwritingthing, riddingcomputerofvirusthing.
neighbor moving strangely
in her house who needs that much space slow sideways bending
why we think with the earth
moves makes it our morning and
soccer's afternoon finding the channel we pass
someone doing the same bending thing

Saturday, July 01, 2006

if crowds are your thing
if fistfights are breaking
out by the Corner Bakery and you are
stranded bodily this much
some people choose a strand of lakefront
blanket aquarium to see exploding things
can i stay (awake) Arizona wants
to go but our roads are too small too full