Two Political Paragraphs Ending in Cynicism

i.
Politics: Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama are both excellent choices (Obama more so) for the Democratic nomination. Either one appears to be capable of beating John McCain and hopefully changing the direction of this countries’ leadership. This in mind, both candidates should be careful not to mistake each other for the enemy. The only way that Democrats could lose the 2008 election is by political infighting and the disorganization it leads to. I suspect one tactic of those who do not wish to see either candidate win is to play up the divide between these candidates a la Brad and Jen, Paris and Nicole, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson, etc. One wins and the other loses while in reality both lose as the media sets the tone, writes the story, and solutions to our current political situation gets lost in the hype. God bless the hype. After all, how could we avoid ourselves without it?

ii.
Equality leads to competition and competition inevitably leads to conflict. After spending a year in Japan, a place where homogeneity is generally a positive cultural norm, I came to appreciate the peace of sameness, a peace all but impossible in the United States, seemingly. Then again, if all the same mass produced products are available to us throughout the entire country, the same stores and the same streets, couldn’t we achieve a peace (at the economic expense of small countries) through intensive homogenization? That globalization will actually lead us one step closer to communism in the sense that Marx’s vision prescribes all industry to come under state control (corporations) before they be turned over to the people. That a massive consolidation and single mindedness is the first step towards moving away from the short comings of capitalism, thus the ugliness of a Home Depot just outside of Baltimore, is actually a harbinger of communist revolution. Thank god for all the craft makers living in Brooklyn so that we may preserve our human souls!

Last night at the corner store I found a box of cereal and a half gallon of milk and paid for it with a ten dollar bill. The clerk gave me change but too much, he gave back thirteen dollars and some change net gain three dollars a half gallon of milk and a box of cereal. In the past I've always said, sir, you've given me the wrong amount of change and tried to feel good about my morality something something good but this time, a little tired from my day and not really wanting to rock any boat, do any good or bad, acknowledged the fact that he gave me the wrong change and walked out, wondering why exactly I didn't say anything. I asked my roommate what this meant and she responded that maybe this was a reflection of a more intuitive way of living but maybe it was just so I could write about it assumption of the common good it was yesterday I went up to the headlands above is not the only thing I saw today is another week of classes I slept well last night.

To react and respond. To keep going or not at all. This kind of writing as a form a meditation, to watch thoughts come and go, to be able to shift between perspectives a sign of health; thus it becomes necessary to write through patches of doubt. Last Tuesday, almost half the class didn’t show and I found this…discouraging.

The goal is to respond, to not be caught up in a premeditated program or meaning but it comes back to this: what I would say to my class about last week, about anxieties about being too soft or permissive. Anxieties about not being a good teacher; about not being good. It’s almost as if my frustration with trying to solve for x is the problem, my relationship to “problems”.

There is a rhythm to my thoughts a particular length of the line. The other day I was talking with a friend about Nietzsche, this idea that tragedy is actually comedy if we distance ourselves. Instead, to push forward with our will “to power”, the thing in front of our mind but what N. doesn’t speak of is the clarity needed to realize this will.

For example the misguided push of the Nazis, a mistake in thinking one wants to rule the world; caught up in false images the tip of their tongue layered in neurosis and dirt, failed reconstruction and low self-esteem. That clarity does not come from a supreme vision but from the everyday, finally, testing and adjusting.

A seagull stretches its wings in the air, flaps twice and disappears from view. The brooding woman has now shifted into the sun a jacket over her head headphones in her ears. Now I’m thinking about the weekend, schoolwork and Sunday, going up to the headlands to visit a friend and the beach. I don’t know what else to say this seems like a good place to stop.

Geometric Haircut

Liu Hai was said to posses a three-legged frog that could transport him anywhere he wished, but on occasion this frog would slip out of his pocket and jump into the nearest well. To retrieve the magic frog, Liu Hai would dangle a fishing line baited with a single gold coin, feeling for contrast. The same angle from a different side.

there was the man on the street i gave ten dollars a brand new ten dollar bill the story of a car crash a racist policeman and the need for a tow truck the promise of tickets to go see david letterman where cold play was playing i guess i looked the type and gave him my number to get the money back to get his car back in brooklyn on the way to my brother's to watch lost in my dream last night he jumped and didn't make it i woke up crying

and then another tow truck a kid talking frantically on a cell phone outside a bar a scam a set up and approach an idea premeditated a graduate school and a static flock of sameness as a known constant he asked I sympathized he gave me the deed to his car for collateral forty bucks later a couple phone calls to what may have been his parents to no fruition i threw the deed away in want of putting it away

i reached across his desk and broke his pencil both times in the middle of something both times in service to an abstract idea of good to quote again from 'tree of smoke' "I was dating Darlene Taylor until this hippie named Michael took her to a party and gave her drugs and fucked her and turned her into a hippie and if michael the evil hippie is against the war, than I am goddamn for it. That's all I know."

Sonnet

The town is empty because I have my headphones on.
Sitting in the cafe window two men with glasses eat breakfast.
Intellectuals need their space.
The stoplight was green but there were no cars
to go. I walked across the intersection.
I reached into my pocket
and found finger nail clippers. I put them there
to remind myself. John
handed me a pear blessed by Buddha.
Surrounded by statues of the Buddha.
I had been feeling kind of disconnected, and thought the pear
might help. By setting it on the counter at night
I remember to eat it the next morning.
My face is sweet like a teenager.

Holy Cow! This is even better than Richard Nixon's resignation speech to the cabinet...Barak Obama speaks on race amongst other things...

Found Poem

I saw a small parrot
yesterday in a restaurant. He had
soft blue and purple gray
feathers . I got a chance to touch him and to
play with him. I named him
“little blue.” No one knows.

We work to be with each other but are kept by the work. This is a description of loneliness but I am not lonely, worried about the future, the week off, the surplus of time and lack of things to do with myself. If I had an invitation to seize I would feel more settled and I do: Portland on the 20^th but until then everyday, get to know the city maybe travel to the grocery store and settle into this apartment. What I don’t want to do is worry about what I’m not doing or have to do or stay so busy that I run out of things to think and forget to relax to take my time, to ease into tomorrow its supposed to rain all day and I look forward to it, to be warm inside all day tippy tacking on my computer while the insects hide in their nests. I’m one of them I guess. But the strange thing about these fears is that they run deep and grounded in real life situations, because last night, I could not sleep. I tossed and turned. There were things on my mind marking an area to walk carefully around. What I really want is to lay in bed and smell the light streaming through the old barn window the fire high on the mountain unable to keep us warm so far away from home. We try to understand and engage this primitive mind without choices and try to quote from nature but end up with muddy things and rocks held between impossible straights the practice making us perfect and translation a result of our frustration it seems easy to reflect on the earth’s curve but there is motion to coming around.

When I was in 2^nd grade, we were given a crossword puzzle, and I sat at my desk and filled in the blank spaces to the best of my knowledge, unable to find the answer to a number of questions. My desk was in the front row and I could easily see into the basket where work was collected, completed crossword puzzles and all. Feeling a twinge of guilt, I filled in my missing answers with Kevin Gregg’s answers, and a couple days later when we got these puzzles back, mine was affixed with a bright sticker of a smiling bear and the words “Grin and Bear It” beneath the bear’s body. Confused by what this meant, Mrs. Rocco explained the word play and smiled at me.

the following is an email strain from the last couple days...

Subject: hello. please call me.

Tyler:

dear team: i've lost my cell phone. i think. i think it's turned off but am not sure. my worst fear is that somebody has found it and is making calls calls calls and i'll have to pay for it. if you get a chance to talk to this person please tell him that you are the police. the battery will be dead soon. if i don't find it in a day i'll get a new one. hopefully this loss will not tear me a new one. thank you to you and yours.

Aaron:

What is your current mailing address and if we speak to someone where should we tell them to return it to. Do you have a friend with a phone number that the person can call to coordinate a return? Did you call AT&T broadband and personal instant messaging service company to get your plan suspended?

Aric:

Did you fart into a paper bag?

Aaron:

I called your phone and left a fart message. It appears to still have
power and be somewhere. A trick I like to use is to go out on the
street and ask everyone you see if they've seen your phone. If they
say no don't just give up that easy. Sometimes you have to use a
little bit of "persuasion" to get info out of individuals.

Aaron:

Aric says it's at the Tempura House Restaurant in Coral Gables, FL. What the fuck were you doing in Coral Gables last night?

Cole:

Herons communicate by farting. I'm getting a new phone, do you want my
old one? its a little smelly.

Tyler:

thanks everybody. please give it a try later on tonight and tomorrow if you will. i'll get a new phone on saturday if it doesn't turn up.

Aaron:

Dude, go to the Tempura House Restaurant. That's where it is.

Aaron:

That doesn't ring a bell?

Aaron:

Hello? Anybody?

Aric:

Hello? Tempura House. Would you like to try our lunch special?

Aaron:

Uh, yeah, that sounds good. Can I have the vegetable tempura, and my
friends phone as well. Also, what types of beer do you have?

Aaron:

And I just want to double check...you're not the police, are you? I
would naturally be worried about an officer serving me lunch.

Aric:

No sir, I am not a police officer. But I just finished serving a police officer our lunch special. It's a grilled heron breast served with 2 quail eggs and a cell phone in a brown paper bag farted into by our top chef.

Aric:

Oh, and for beer we have Molson, Coors Light, and Woodchuck hard cider.

Aaron:

This police officer sounds familiar...did she have short brown hair,
about down to her shoulders? I think that might have been my wife.

In any case, was it my friend's cell phone that you served with the
grilled heron and then handed over to the officer?

And can you make a black and tan with Molson and Coors Light, with the
Coors Light on the top?

Or would you recommend a cider bomb with Molson and Woodchuck in a
sake glass suspended by chopsticks just seconds before I slam my fists
down on the table thinking about that Bitch and then plop! A nice
mixture of Molson and hard cider.

Aaron:

Oh, and Tyler...don't forget to check at the Tempura House Restaurant.
I think you might have left your phone there due to a recent visit.

Aric:

And as a reminder Tyler, if you've recently been inside of an Asian restaurant in the San Francisco area lately, particularly any restaurants specializing in tempura, they may have your cellular phone.

Cole:

is it an iPhone? those are pretty sweet.

Cole:

this cell phone mess is about as confusing as this story
http://www.kansas.com/news/updates/story/339011.html

Tyler:

you know, it's funny. the last place i ate was a tempura place. really. i'll go ask them tomorrow.

Aaron:

Now I think he's on the right track. Was it called the Tempura House
Restaurant?

Aaron:

Way back in this email session I wrote, "Aric says it's at the Tempura

House Restaurant in Coral Gables, FL. What the fuck were you doing in

Coral Gables last night?" I wrote that because Aric called me and
told me to tell you it was there. He must have had someone pick up on
the other end of your phone from the restaurant. He told me to tell
you presumably because he wasn't next to an Internet terminal. So, I
thought I would "tip you off" by mentioning the tempura thing.
Apparently it didn't ring a bell at the time. I added in Coral Gables
(the city that I work in), for comedic effect, but this may have
sidetracked you further. I think you should check at the restaurant
that you ate at recently that served tempura.

Tyler:

yeah yeah i get it now. i'll pick the phone up today. you know, it's hard to take these emails at all seriously, but i should of put two and two together. the story: tuesday night i got some chicken donburi at a restaurant called the Tempura House Restaurant, right before class and I was in a hurry and only ate half my meal and then asked for a box and made a little to go package and in the process forgot my cell phone which I had set out on the table to remind myself how much time I had to eat...

reading this emails, at the first mention of the tempura house i thought about where i had eaten but didn't understand why the person from the tempura house had called one of you guys, which is a total failure of my imagination in the sense for some reason i couldn't imagine that you all had called and spoken to the guy who works there quickly enough...i think that was the thing: the rapidity of the response that threw me off, (and the fact that i wasn't in coral gables), because i sent the email and then ten minutes later you mentioned the tempura house and i thought it must be a conincidence. what finally did it was maybe the fifth blatent reminder, i think written by aric, that asked me to think about if i had eaten at a tempura restaurant in san francisco...that one hit. thanks for keeping the in formation coming. the funny thing is that i was actually going to get a new cell phone this weekend.

The void eternally generative. Wen Fu. It feels good to say that, to imagine myself saying that. Had a conversation with Shorewood following Chris’ lecture on Alberto Masferrer, an El Salvadorian writer; the lecture’s history leading to a memory, leading to a sense of place and closure. Always a beginning, I asked Shorewood, the man sitting next to me what he though gender normative is and he replied the societal standards enforced by our culture, manly men and those around us. One Big Self. Photographs of walls being built and children painting them.

He cited the example of his sister’s children being given things to play with based on gender, and encouraged. This an example of reinforcement, a virulent idea of ourselves. I responded that it seems like the same day for everyone in the terms of “getting over” ourselves as children; that regardless of where one comes from the necessity of self-actualization remains. Our conversation stopped. We looked away. I was self-conscious of the rapidity that I responded; the eagerness to disagree, at least rhetorically, and wondered if that was a bad habit or a brave one.

The lecture ended on a question, that of translating things for oneself, a theme of the evening, and an idea I can understand. The how more than the what the what the content of the lecture the how how we might make sense of it. Translation and talk of translation, to follow up on, to lecture and ask questions. That to become ourselves we must translate for ourselves we must make our own meanings from our own words as opposed to letting someone do it for us. Here is the link to Chris' lecture.

It's great to be back. Thank you. Thank you very much. This morning the sun burnt a hole in my head the sun came through the french doors and hit the guy this guy sleeping in the closet which might sound bad but its actually a large closet and the mattress fits perfectly so as just enough room to extend fully and wide enough to have a small stack of paper goods on one side without rolling into them throughout the night. All of the above frees up the rest of the room to form some kind of living/working area, two desks, a little couch, plants in the windows, the street outside filling with cars and people slightly asleep from the new style wake up time the sun in a new position the mailman chuckling with his mailman buddies and babies pushing daddies and strollers staffed by mommies and construction workers down the street come back to find their machines covered in graffiti and bikers and bikers and bikers and instead of a small window facing a yellow apartment building there is a entire panoramic view of Valencia which is different if noisy at night meet the artist meet the drunk college kids meet the surly punk rocker selling delicious pizza again the sun burning holes in my head it's time to make breakfast drink tea sit back down its Monday the last week of school before spring break.

A month ago I asked Amy if, when rescheduling our couples therapy appointment, she would “tell her” (Lesley, the therapist). Amy responded that she would tell Lesley that we were “broken up” and I responded that a better way to say it would be that I am “moving out”, and went on to justify this as a more accurate assessment of the situation; that “moving out” is literally what is happening, thus avoiding the dramatized “break up”; lives crumbling and tears flowing. I don’t think I could go through with moving out if I were to think in terms of finite separation, or terms that never made sense to me. I think it’s more complicated than that. And when complexity arises, I figure the best way to accurately represent a the situation is to explain only what one can see; to let the actions speak for themselves.

Two summers ago in New York, I went to Burning Deck’s 30 Year Anniversary reading. There I ran into Michael Gizzi, who I knew from graduate school, and he introduced me to an older poet whose name I don’t recall (sorry). I was telling this poet about my plan to move to California, to be with my long term love. Later in the conversation he asked when I found time to write, and I responded that I had so much free time living alone and working (painting) on my own schedule, writing came out of a kind of boredom. He pointed out that living with a woman would seriously hinder this kind of boredom. I laughed, unable to foresee the problem.

I remember my radio show in college, where at 1:45 AM Thom and I would stage the “1:45 Talkabout”, where instead of playing music we would talk to each other, take calls, play sound effects or what-ev; fill up the fifteen minutes until 2. Once, talking about a local scandal that neither of us knew anything about (the resignation of the student body president), a call came in telling us to quit talking about things we didn’t know about. The caller was angry and well spoken. We laughed and then changed the topic.

A Sunday when I was nine, my father laying on the bed watching 'This Old House', and the press of the impending parental switch in my mind: I walked into the room and declared "I am so bored" and laid down alongside my father and cried. He held me and this is all I remember.

I remember this feeling of emptiness, beyond nothing "to do" into feeling nothing inside of me: no direction or will, no 'spring' of life bubbling up from the platform of ourselves. I began to tell this story for the first time about three years ago to a therapist, randomly trying to get to the bottom of my relationship with my father.

The feeling could easily be confused with depression but I don't think a nine year old can be depressed, at least not in the way that I understand depression. But whatever this feeling was, it has stayed with with me. Psychologically (I think), what is at stake is not the feeling of emptiness but the fact of my perception regarding it. Inherently there is nothing wrong with nothing, right? I mean, how could "something" be wrong with "nothing"? Beyond semantics, nothingness seems to me the baseline for the universe and by universe I mean everything; that is, we return to it always hence the term "eternally generative void" (Wen Fu). That always, something emerges from nothing; our being being born and the silence at the end of a sentence, just beneath the surface of everything we do.

Psychologically, what is at steak for the science of, is the concern or direction and quality of my attention vs. this observation. In other words, why does this bother me? Why do I remember? What is the stress or what am I really talking about? George Oppen:

The self is no mystery, the mystery is
That there is something for us to stand on.

(from "World, World--" as found in the book This In Which)

Recently I’ve been thinking about the importance of community and the pointlessness of an isolated practice in anything. This is the short version. The long version begins with The Grand Piano, a series of “collective autobiography” books by the Language Poets about their experiences together in the late seventies. The books have been enjoyable, learning about their lives and the movement, but only yesterday, reading Barrett Watten’s passage in the 5^th book of the series, did their ‘thing’ being to clearly emerge. That is, a stress on group dynamics and honesty rather then on an individual aesthetic or the craft of a poem; coming up together or all boats will rise. Watten mentions the modernist movement as cementing the artist as individual, and in thinking about some of my favorite poets, like Wallace Stevens; the awe one feels when reading a Stevens’ poem seems built in, and results in a distancing effect. Never am I inspired to write after reading a Stevens poem, and if I try I fail, discouraged by the perfection of his words and ways in my mind.

Then again, other favorites like George Oppen harp on the notion that we live amongst each other by choice, and in reading him I feel as if I am gaining know how of what’s going on, akin to reading a newspaper or an essay that resonates. His form inspires me but his clarity of thought seems singular, though I’ve had more success after reading him than Stevens. I’m coming to realize that the emptiness that is showcased at the center of a lot of my writing (and myself), is not just a thing that happens to be there, but a result of the method by which I choose to write and live. I’m talking about the immensely competitive ‘best-writer-in-the-room’ mentality that I’ve been developing since college. Its affect, though helpful for producing fine tuned pieces of art and gaining individual recognition, is unsustainable as a way of life in a world where frequent if short interruptions/communications/events (think email, text messages) determine the rhythms of our lives, for better or for worse.

In a way, what I’m trying to say is that my mode of being is outdated. More importantly, I’m trying to say that living right as an everyday process and the value of living immediately and without compromise sustains people in the long run. That accord, though subtle and anything but spectacle, is a preferable way to live; the life as art kind of thing rather than the other way around. In terms of my past practices, I’ve willingly alienated myself in name of ‘art’. This seems wrong, not in the sense of an individual choice, but in a communal this needs to change if we want to keep on living, persevering.

To me this is what the language poets were suggesting, at least in The Grand Piano. In practice, who knows if that’s how it turned out. But I imagine that this is how the language poets could be read: that ultimately a book is credited to a single author and in this context, talk of community seems like lip service to an idea that ultimately showcases the individual: the individual as our most basic unit of our humanness, our dasien, our being; that can’t be transcended. How to co-exist as an individual and a member of a community seems to me, one of the more immediate questions that they raise.

Or, what’s more helpful and less Californicated to me, is the realization that 20^th century poetry is full of tragic stories and craziness. The idea that poetry must somehow trace the border of mental illness to be authentic has, despite our best intentions, stayed with us and our culture. Kurt Cobain, Nietzsche, Karl Marx, whatever infinity; the life of self/other-destruction. Instead, maybe it would be more helpful to look towards the long term model and use this as a basis for value. That the measure of an artist should not only be gauged by the work but by the artists ability to “be there”, or simply, to persevere and adapt. Robert Creeley, though some people say he did his best work when he was young, lived on and taught and was available: a model that changes and knows that there are other ways to be.

here is a "play", circa 2004.

2004

Setting: A hotel room in the style of the Best Western or Holiday Inn. A queen size bed, a low dresser, and a television on top of the dresser for example.

A man in his 30’s dressed in causal garb (slacks, tennis shoes, polo shirt) opens the hotel room door, enters with his bags, set them down on the side of the bed closest the window, and sits down on the bed. He takes off his shoes. He looks around. He gets up and slides the window curtain apart and looks out, seeing nothing, then opens a few drawers on the dresser. Seeing nothing inside, he closes them. He sees the remote control sitting on the television and picks it up, and returns to the bed, this time propping himself up with pillows, his legs all the way on the bed. He turns on the television and watches it. He flips through the channels. This goes on for five minutes.

He turns and picks up the phone on the nightstand. He pauses briefly to look at the information posted on the phone and dials one number.

Man: Hey there, this is room 227. I’m calling for a wake up call at six o’clock.

The man listens to the voice on the phone

Man: Great, thanks. [hangs up the phone]

He leans back, continuing to watch the television. This goes on…

1^st Person in Audience: Boooooring

The man looks out at the audience with a confused/pained expression, then gets off the bed and leaves through the door.

The television remains on. Two minutes later, the hotel room door opens and person in a chicken costume enters, holding a silver platter on which a letter sits next to a letter opener. The chicken turns off the television and sits at the foot of the bed, opening the letter with the letter opener. He begins to read…

Voice Over: Dear chicken. I got your urgent message. I understand you.