{ yesterday's tweets. }

( my milkshake brings all the tweets to the yard )

LoudTwitter, innit?

{ Mary Oliver: Rice. }

Rice
by Mary Oliver

It grew in the black mud.
It grew under the tiger's orange paws.
Its stems thinner than candles, and as straight.
Its leaves like the feathers of egrets, but green.
The grains cresting, wanting to bust.
Oh, blood of tiger.

I don't want you just to sit down at the table.
I don't want you just to eat, and be content.
I want you to walk out into the fields
Where the water is shining, and the rice has risen.
I want you to stand there, far from the white tablecloth.
I want you to fill your hands with the mud, like a blessing.

{ Elizabeth Hoover: Attempt. }

Attempt
by Elizabeth Hoover

after Imogen Cunningham

She had studied the art of the tea ceremony
in Nagasaki before the war
and said that, although technically perfect,
she lacked something—

the translator struggled for a bit
then settled on sad sentience,
but it was more—the beauty

of imperfection, the absence
of desire, a hint of perishability.
Something I search for

here on Geary Street all dusted up
in midmorning light—jamming, shattering
glorious in the broken windows of an abandoned shop.

When I first started taking pictures I was terrified
of missing things, I struggled to capture
the haze that collects over a morning
spent making love, tried to keep

the thumbprint shadow under the nub
of his collarbone. Now I consider the light
its shifting syntax, the way the glass adds
a playful grammar, before I swing

my camera off my shoulder. Now he is just
a ghost I draw through dripping fingers,
flashes of white on the negative
bring choked love-calls to my throat.

If I get the angle right,
this photo will have three layers of glass
and my reflection nested in architectural lines:

the machinery of my hands
the ruin of my face.

The quality the woman spoke of is elusive
and must contain that which is dying
and that which is exuberantly alive.

She said she never achieved it.
She stopped practicing
after the bomb killed her family.

Watching the film she brought I wondered
what could I give her
for her story
for her sorrow.

Why use a machine to make a bomb
into a brilliant moon that resolves
silently in majestic clouds?

All around me
perfect shadows
balanced compositions
go unphotographed.

I stand here
in this back alley
finding not perfection
not tranquility surrounding emptiness,

but the memory of his face

turning from the dark hallway
into the bedroom where a window
illuminates his cheekbone
darkens his eyes.

The light twists into an improbable arc
slicing the frame—I let it pass.

{ the machinery of my hands / the ruin of my face. }

Why do I continue to leave updating till 10 minutes before I have to go to sleep? Because I continue to be an idiot.

--

So, Soton! That was weird. And great, too, but also just weird and I loved it whilst feeling a little out of sorts. It doesn't help that I am now apparently allergic to that house (dust content = insane) and other things were going on. But it was an excellent extended weekend. I did a lot of walking/enjoying the sunshine, and met a bioterrorist in a bar, so, you know.

Mostly I spent time with good friends and talked my backside off, so it's all good.

--

Back to work tomorrow. Oh gosh.

--

I started writing a Ziva post (re: finale) but it didn't get very far. That said, I haven't rewatched the episode again yet so I should probably get on that. In other news, I found the Criminal Minds finale a bit sensationalist, and thought the ending was ridiculous.

--

I bought a ridiculous number of books, guys. Mostly Kazuo Ishiguro novels but I also finally picked up a copy of Evan Wright's Generation Kill. The way I'm going with that, I'll probably be through it by tomorrow or Thursday night.

I also tried to buy Mary Oliver's Wild Geese but N bought the last copy. Will have to look for it in C tomorrow. I have some to post from that collection; I think I'll post the title poem now.

--

I posted in-house postcards today but I'm still sorting out the others because I continue to be lame. Relatedly: gosh, packing shit can be tiresome, however much I love sending things out. Also relatedly: my love to you all.