Yes Eros being Eros but for what

There is a distance I search for 

A planet, I try to find

I’m searching for a distance 

Your children are not your children

Rather, a set of jagged claws

A planet where my subjects are bidden

My father-myth

My wayward daughter

There are mire-flowers in our dialect 

A shirt of flax stone 

That grew in the forest 

Pine bread and sap, pressed together 

My glance fell on our duration

See with your hands not just with your eyes

Mind flit towards adoration 

An unreliable frame

An event that rhymes

A looking glass in a holiday glow

Of human bondage

Blogging feels like an afterthought. My shipment of xanax arrived in the post. The postcard Tabitha sent me arrived in the post. Topeka School came too. I ordered wine and it arrived at my door through contactless means. Everything seems to be arriving and nothing is leaving. There's talk that everyone knows someone who has corona. That's what James said to me when we illegally hung out the other night. I put make up on to hangout with my friend and do drugs. He took too much and vomited a little but I continued to dance because what was I to do?



I'm doing well coping with copious amounts of drugs. Sucks that the moment I feel generous there is no one I can extend my generosity towards.

In my short excursions outside I've witnessed the most abject things like a sleeping man on Grand Street with 5 rats running all over him. What was I to do?


Catalpas; Ashbery

The scene: I am drinking celery juice, lukewarm coffee, bone broth with cayenne and ginger. A bowl that says SALAD SALAD SALAD holds a handful of raspberries. I'm wearing the exact outfit Diane Keaton is wearing in this picture with Woody Allen. I love my new l'ecole des femmes shorts. The soundtrack in my head alternates from "hips don't lie" by Shakira and the sound of Andrew Cuomo's voice. This is equivalent to a laugh track.

 

 I've always been wary of myth been put to glib uses.

Last night I had a zoom call with a few of my peers. M and I did K in our respective homes. It was fun, we drank and laughed a lot. We conceptualized meatloaf (the food not the band). I miss my peers and when I see them I'll hug them. The night before that I had my first online zoom workshop class. I think it went better than expected.



I'm still anxious and depressed but a wave of resignment has come over me. Now I harbor longing. I feel like that meme where the guy is texting his ex being like "hey just wanted to see how you were...". I'm literally texting random people in my life and have taken to calling mere strangers on the phone.

Who do I look to, to see the truth? I suppose I've always been a seeker of certain forms of disruption of habitus but one can never anticipate this.

Is this what real anarchy looks like? It's boring as hell.

Imagine thinking you are a free agent

I don't particularly like when one day blends into another. It feels like I’m subsisting on time. Time alone dictating my life, a life lived with no agency or choice. At least I can open a window, right? It seems to be the only thing I have lately. I would never be so ungrateful, I'm humbled to know language and with language I can create a semblance of agency. Sure, depth can close you around but you can tease anything with the right words.
I rather not talk about the glorified plague that is on everyone's minds. I rather focus on the lethargy, non-object permanence, the inevitable crash that is a loss of momentum.

I was doing so well. We were doing quite fine.

I read Monica Youn's, Blackacre in basically a sitting. I don't like doing that, especially with poetry but I will admit that it feels gratifying. Like being part of the clean plate club (a club I rarely frequent). To consume words like thin air. I'm jealous of how Youn managed to make a concept out of this collection feel concrete yet each poem can stand alone, they don't need each other in order to make sense.

I had to look up the word Blackacre, according to www.yourdictonary.com: Blackacre - Legal Definition. n. The name of a fictitious piece of land frequently used, especially in law school, when discussing concepts and issues of the law concerning real property and future interests. Thus,"Blackacre" became a placeholder in cases and discussions pertaining to the rights of various parties to a piece of land.

The book opens with a palinode, it reads in its entirety:

I was wrong

please I was

wrong please I

wanted nothing please

I don't want.

And Youn does look hard at desire: how it arises, how it is satisfied, and how it recurs. I mentioned how the poems don’t need each other but the way they speak to one another is in a balanced harmony, many of the poems are self referential.

The first section of the collection is modeled on Francois Villon's "Ballad of the Hanged". It is vivid, disconcerting, haunting, and beautiful. I particularly loved the poem "Portrait of a Hanged Woman."(below), it reminded me of my friend Emily and I also sent her the poem, she of course enjoyed it.


The second section begins with a prose poem called "Desideratum," meaning something that is needed or wanted. Youn fills the subsequent pieces with nature motifs that speak not only to flora, but also to the speaker's urge to reproduce herself: "a seed falls // from a bird's / unappeasable body. // A little twirl of air / guides them down the trunk // as if down a glass staircase // (not to a room) / to a landing, // a crevice, / (not a cradle)."

The poems are fearless in many ways: they are political and thematic without being obvious, they are precise but they have the ability to be expansive -- they have enough room to walk around inside of them. Blackacre definitely merits a second or even third read. I am especially curious as to why my workshop teacher gifted this specificly to me, I wonder how he knew that this work would resonate with me the way it does.

******************************** 8

I have to admit to an unbearable sadness. Other than Youn I read a couple of Beckett plays, lots of Linda Pastan poems, I keep coming back to Molly Brodak again and again, some of Sharon Old’s Stag’s Leap, a collection of poems about grief, divorce and “rediscovery”. But nothing is quite sticking yet. My attention span is preoccupied. Last night I spent some time on j-stor because they have, since this epidemic, made a lot of their content free and open access (though I get it free anyway bc of school). I couldn't help but be angered. I thought about Aaron Schwartz and how his mother posts on twitter on every 6 month anniversary of his death.

Everything is making me cry lately. It goes without saying the news but other, more metaphysical things too. I miss people, I long to be touched, I'll even take being badly loved if it means being embraced.

I woke up to good news this morning, I’m an aunt! Well kinda, my ex’s brother had a baby. Sweet equinox baby Leonora brought me to tears at 7 am. She is already so precious. I went back to sleep and then I watched two Akerman short films as soon as I arose. I stretched for 30 minutes. I talked to my friends, read the news, scrolled for all eternity, read more Edward Dorn poems, recorded 4 poems for Kyle. Thought about my life. Thought about my life. Thought about my life. Thought about what I have to offer. And then I thought about my life.



I wonder if I will come out of this quarantine with new habits, some good, I hope. There’s this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach yet I miss nothing, in particular.