2/9/14

Sunday, the rain

Has passed

But not the grey

the insufferable dampness coming down on the city like a blanket
or long-term relationships

Asking over and over for attention to go grocery shopping or to watch a ten seconds Youtube clip

Wavering between one’s need for warmth and the other’s intolerance for unmoving air
even with the windows opened

Reading of gloating praises of Nobel laureate and poetry as art

Art, what fucking art?

When all one wants to do is a to pass a Sunday without the vexation of boredom, the numbness of distractions and—


God damn it—just a breath of fresh air

Birthdays

Forgot mine this year
when did they become a chore

I laughed
as a child
at that ridiculous
plot hole
how could anyone forget their birthdays

and why

Now I laugh at that child

they are easy to unremember

I spent mine this year
in an emergency room

watching glass-cut flesh get sewn
how fragile
everything is
even that certainty I once held

Nobody
Nobody forgets their own birthday

Why I write

long after I know no one else comes to visit, but me
it is because
when I revisit the things I once wrote
that old familiar yet strange me
still stirs fresh emotions
and because
I know
it still means something to me
after that time, the distance
that is why I write
not for anyone else to read, or to impress,
but to reconnect with an old feeling, a place, a fleeting
fancy
It is a testament to the things I've once seen, heard, and thought
no longer

That is why I write
to get at that space
that time and forgetfulness quite easily replace

I write because I once was, and is still here

Yes, our existence, like so many footprints in the sand
why does it matter what where how why

But because I wrote. It is a consolation: that what where how why
mystery that we are
doesn't mean a thing
but that I wrote I was there
that is a fact too
just as I was here, is here, and may not be there
was born, am living, will die
I wrote.

That is a fact too.

Three years

the last note
and
this

A space

between
which

365 days times two plus five months and eight days fell
among lost words, forgotten tears, and things too sentimental to want

to remember

the space too

where some young part of me ballooned and wilted

eternally like lives of a mushroom


in some god forgotten space

between that last note

and this

Birthday

Took the day off, an old habit, I admit
made plans (a museum maybe)
sitting in front of the computer (on my bed) at noon
summoning up excitement (like I should)

Every year, a bit of the old magic gets rubbed away
little by little
like cityscapes erased
by the incoming fog of old age

I am not old (yet) I know
but as certain as others assure me of the fact
I am aware that I am young ( no longer)

The evidence is clear in the lackadisical way I tell old friends
thanks for your kind wishes
the unwillingness to get out of bed
to celebrate (what and how) I am unsure of

The reason (why) I am reluctant to wake my sister up
who is (still)
dreaming
young dreams

Alamo Square, 05/26/12, 6:53pm

The bird that was flying so strangely
balleting through the air
was a falling leaf

catching the 10pm 29

You don't believe in soul mates
so you destroyed my ideal, too (I still haven't forgiven you for that)
chipping at its logical foundation with reason,
I don't have your skills of argumentation,
reducing it to a childish rubble.

You are not romantic. You are not poetic.
You don't read, except for technological news
and some of my writing,
just so you can ridicule them
because, you said, it is fun.
You bore me with international news I don't find amusing.
You called yourself a genius, and meant it.

You are not that guy in my writing class
who crafts words that ebb and flow to lunar gravitational pull
whom I tried to count the number of times he laughed (zero)
and seemed to glow inwardly with that sad wounded melancholic air of a poet.

No, you are not.

But the next time I meet another guy who tugs at my heartstrings
because he is mysterious and promises wondrous stories
Let me never forget that tonight,
it is you,
who, when the bus ran its stop, kept right on
despite my pleas for it to stop
ran alongside, in your sandals,
and when I got tired,
went right on ahead so that you could flag it at that next corner
after I had gotten tired of shouting: Please. Stop.
after I had started to tear
after my legs gone weak
so that at that next stop, standing at the door, holding up eight pairs of eyes, I could get on, knowing that I wouldn't have caught it,
if it wasn't for you.

Five years in between

What is the maximum distance from which you can love a human being?
Answer: less than a millimeter. And without a name.
-Lars Gustafsson

I knew that you wanted to say more
I ignored you
deliberately
and laughed loudly so you wouldn't have a chance,
not to say more
I know you wrote about me in that poem
so I chose not to look at it
After all five years is a long time
Long enough to make a city unrecognizable
and the old places
familiarly strange

There is a maximum distance from which you can love a human being

it is not 8490 air miles and
five years in between