| Here sits a once good gardener, pale as a shadow of a doubt,
Once a happy dweller of a garden good, once a sleepy sinner,
once cast out
To the sea where the crossy-eyed maids murmur low, "do you see, do you see
where the doubts cross his shadow?"
Drowned and amoral, I pollinate the coral and reek of the deep
where I've tended the water weed -
I was once your good gardener, sing to bring on Spring,
I know where your good grass grows,
I know what your boyfriend knows,
I was your good gardener.
I saw twilight car waxers, corpulent dog walkers, clean canny couples on the sunset strip,
From a tower forty miles to the east of Augusta saw a plague on the Indian
a'coming on a windship,
You were in the garden when the wind swept up and took the foul words from your mouth
Now you know what your sarcasm really really means
It's the tearing with your teeth of the flesh from the bones of your brother -
Kill the shrub to fertilise the flower,
Did I hear you saying that the form doesn't matter?
Well form into matter, the matter is forever, but only in a good garden
Black rock bound in the Brighton bowl where the seas of desolation roll,
Where you're borne and borne and borne in again to the pebble-feather shore of forgotten friends
Think how you can't see the science without seeing first the self,
But then nobody thinks of growing somebody else,
And how the sun, hungry sun, holds the withered withered world,
So why shouldn't I kiss the beautiful girl?
When I was her good gardener.
Sing of the Summer sham,
O see them grow tall, see them in their rot, see them go to seed in the cemetery plot
I was your good gardener
Sing to bring on Spring
O ice of Winter would crackle and splinter with my love in everything
Ice of Winter would crackle and splinter with my love in everything
I was your good gardener...
The sea is stark and lovely, and it scares me to the point of rapture
I was your good gardener, of some good stature
The sea is stark and lovely, and it scares me to the point of rapture
I was your good gardener, now I - can barely - look at you. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| a girl was fed meal upon meal of words, of ideas. the words began to form her figure, which was, as a process, easily recognisable & seemingly the proper way to take shape. underneath her skin the words would cut their sharp edges into bones, slicing apart connections & forming new networks, changing the girl's internal structure in such a way that it became difficult to tell how she was actually put together. & there were errors, there were sections of tendon & bone that did not properly reach, so that any type of movement became painful...the quiet sort of pain, however. the type that one does not complain about, in an attempt to disown its reality & thus banish its existence altogether. but, despite her best efforts, the discomfort, the continual sense of being stretched, remained.
one day this girl decided that the only way she could determine what was actually her own body would be to take herself apart. she peeled back the skin from her fingers & saw that the words had written themselves upon her bones, in a stubborn black ink. but, upon careful examination, the girl realised that only half of the words were in english, while the others remained unreadable to her eyes. the idea that her own body spoke words that she did not understand was decidedly unsettling to the girl. she wished that her teeth were the keys of a tiny typewriter, & that with each opening & closing of her mouth she wrote her own story inside of herself, the words forming on her bones, on her skin, on her organs. & so she began to write as she began unlacing her spine. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| (sitting still to watch the engines come & go.)
outside speaks autumn at last.
(this is all i know.)
i kind of miss the self of mine that liked to write in online journals. maybe i will bring her back; but maybe i will need someone to help me do so. that self perhaps was a little more whimsical & creative, though a little less well-adjusted, of course.
nostalgia is everywhere. it is fall. my internal clock still counts fall as the start of a new year, even though i am no longer in school. changes are visible, tangible, brightly colored.
(kissed & kind)
this week had two pasts at its core, both converging on a tuesday.
(as you long for intuition...as you have to learn the lesson twice.) | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Today we went to the National Gallery, and the first painting that really stood out to me was "Young Girl Holding a Dove", by Picasso [that may not be the exact title, forgive me]. I was overwhelmed by its simplistic beauty & obvious portrayal of innocence. Much later, while viewing other paintings, I had an undeniable urge to go back to the Picasso. I went back to the room to find, standing before the painting that had etched itself in my heart, a small girl of no more than eight years, sketching Picasso's work into a tiny notebook.
Tears sprung to my eyes as I was somehow blessed enough to take in a full circle view of innocence...a little girl both living & capturing youth.
I cannot take incidents like these in a light manner...they weigh upon me...not as a burden, but as an anchor. An assurance that my life is pulled together and knotted loosely with both beauty & reason.
I miss you kids, though, & wish that a lot of you were with me. Especially Liz - I think you would love it here...maybe we can visit together sometime, when we're both rich.
We'll be spending two days next week in Edinburgh, Scotland, too.
[why is my heart so tired ?] | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| the walking man on the walk / don't walk signs here is much fatter than his American counterpart.
I still have not slept. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Melissa : "Is that the Little Dipper?"
Josh : "You mean that little, dipper thing?"
so we went to a dock off of Monticello Lake, & also, completely by chance, wound up on a road called Candy Cane Lane.
& now I am home & I should be asleep.
happy Christmas, dearhearts. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| There are songs to be sung,
and pages to be filled with memories.
There are roads to be traveled in places I have never seen.
There are postcards to send,
and so much beauty just to take in.
There are dreams to be chased,
and friends to be held more dearly.
There is love to be seen more clearly.
There are fears to be faced,
and tremblings to understand.
There are new days to brave,
and all this foolish pride to lay down in your hands.
-the Gloria Record | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| I had been feeling a bit too cynical all day today, so I cancelled plans for the evening & stayed home to calm down & give myself a bit of time to think.
I hung the ornaments on the christmas tree while listening to Over the Rhine's The Darkest Night of the Year. my mother somehow snagged a whole set of brilliant 1950s ornaments during one of her garage sailing sprees. very simple & clean & mod-looking...quite beautiful, actually. I cried while 'Mary's Waltz' was playing. the sort of cry that serves to make emotions tangible...I don't know whether that makes any sense...but I don't view crying as a negative thing or a display of emotional weakness. for me it's often a form of resolution...usually a release of simultaneous joy & sorrow.
it was especially important cos I think the last time I cried [& I don't mean attempting to hold back tears while watching movies, which I am doing constantly] was back in September. no, that isn't true...the last time I cried was in Atlanta just last month. Bre & I went to church one Sunday night, & the pastor was speaking on being brave & putting into motion the plans & hopes that are instilled in us by God...this at a time when I was doubting a lot of the decisions I had been making...at one point he began reading from Prince Caspian, including a section I had entered in my journal a week before...a conversation between Aslan & Lucy...& I somehow felt that direct connection with God, where I see the way my days don't fall together haphazardly, but correspond & grow & move towards some sort of goal.
last night on my way home I stopped on Main Street & took pictures. it was freeing in a strange way, & I realised how much I love the way light plays upon things. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | bob dylan : boots of spanish leather | | Time: | 02:50 am | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/mice/determined.gif) determined |
|
| i am tired of loving something invisible
wings reach down & shake the snow from the trees
it falls in patterns on the slick pavement
i rearrange the icicles to spell out my name
the letters strangely vulgar in their winter garment
i am tired of this hunting around your heart
arrows drawn & bow stretched taut in my hands
as if my prey were capable of surrender
i claim a stretch of ground as my flag of abdication
realising i have been my sole defender
he says to me
'oh my love.
why do you wait?
why do you wait?'
i am tired of this hunting around your heart
fire ablaze & thin blanket over my body
as if sleep would bring you nearer to me
oh i have lied it is not your heart i am hunting
it is my own it is only mine it is only...
you say to me
'oh my love.
why do you wait?
why do you wait?' | | comments: Leave a comment |
| [........................]
I am held in a million different ways.
I am grateful for that. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Omaha found me making peace with God & others, & St. Louis has found me making peace with myself. I am not at all the same girl who boarded the train to New Jersey in early September. But, in a different way, I am a more solidified version of that very same girl.
Tonight includes the City Museum & a viewing of Angels of the Universe, the Icelandic film with a score composed & performed by Sigur Ros. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| "It may be that what you could be haunts you. It is real. It is a weight you have to carry around. Each failure to become, to be, is a weight. Each state you could inhabit is a burden as heavy as any physical weight, but more so, because it weighs on your soul. It is the ghost of your possibilities hanging around your neck, an invisible albatross, potentials unknowingly murdered."
- Ben Okri
There are many things I am slowly becoming, & I only have the faintest idea of what they really are...of who I truly am. I see it materialising before my eyes sometimes, as if I am staring into a television screen of static that forms shapes only to release them into anonymity again.
I was reading through some entries in the journal I keep & something stuck out to me -
In so many ways I am only just starting. I need to embrace that. I am filled up with days inside of me that haven't yet occurred. Maybe sometimes my mind gets jumbled and things of the future float before my eyes just for a second. I think those brief seconds are important somehow, but they cannot become more important than the minutes, hours and days I am really living. And I am really living. I wonder how many people could truly say that?
I want to put a slotted spoon inside my mouth and sift out all of the complaints. Then I could pour them in a big ceramic bowl and see them for what they really are.
//
These days are the passageway to future days, hopefully more beautiful & perhaps a bit less confusing...But I cannot ignore these days, or I will lose not only them but also the future self I am to become. The potential is rising inside of my throat but the words are not formed.
I wish I had a copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being right about now... | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| I just had some fairly frightening dreams during the nap I took just now...one involved me falling asleep on a ledge & then falling into a pool of water filled with broken sculpture pieces of human body parts & other indecipherable things...in the dream I woke up & realised I had fallen, got back up, but then repeated the whole process.
I wanted to say, when I was talking about the art museum, the way my eyes change when I am used to using them to actually OBSERVE rather than just look. When I left the museum, I was so used to looking for life & meaning & symbol in objects that I noticed two cars in the parking lot facing each other, & they seemed to me to be angry, almost challenging each other to a fight. I remember that sort of thing used to happen sometimes when I was in Columbia...late at night Delilah & I would drive around in her car & look at our neighborhood, actually seeing things, taking notice of the beautiful & the strange...& then, the next day, when I would begin to drive somewhere, everything looked different. The details of my surroundings jumped to my eyes & mind instead of just fading into the background. I like that state of being.
Tulsa was a good experience for me. Riding in cars, sharing words, sharing songs, sometimes in silence, sometimes singing, sometimes speaking of hope & fear, having a sense of certainty that the person next to you has a good understanding of your heart, hearing & seeing music being played by people who love what they are doing, having breakfast & coffee at 2 in the afternoon, the calming feeling of riding in the car in the sun with the smell of a cigarette...these are days & nights that help me breathe, & I know that many more of them will grace my life. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| Attention Illinois : it looks like the Chicago area is going to be my home for awhile beginning in February. I am excited:)
I went to the Saint Louis art museum yesterday & was struck again with the realistic [yet abstract] nature in which the Flemish / Dutch painters portray Christ, unafraid of showing pain & disfigurement. They make all other paintings of him seem to be a lie.
I have the best friends in the world, really. Friends who stay just as dear regardless of how many maps I would have to unfold to reach them.
Off to get my passport now... | | comments: 12 comments or Leave a comment |
| I sliced my finger open tonight while, of all things, baking brownies. It hurts a bit to type.
Does anyone know anyone with extra space [couch, floor, closet, corner] in which I can live from March until July or so? or somewhere in between? I'm not even kidding, & I am open to anywhere. I can pay rent & cook & bake & clean & make nice gifts & provide forms of entertainment & & & & & & & & & & &
On Friday I am driving again, to see my lovely Carrie-face & to watch Ester Drang and American Analog Set as they create perfectly wonderful sounds.
My walls are made of maps.
http://www.foundmagazine.com brings me joy. | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
braille's journal![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/mice/angel.gif){kind=small}
peaceful![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/mice/happy.gif){kind=small}
grateful![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/mice/surprised.gif){kind=small}
awake