Wednesday, June 18, 2008

where this don't live

facets
filament threads running over north south east
west
the south
southern tongues tasting
forward road running endless
the sides of the earth fenced tamed rubbed bare
burdens
sweat runs down her face and womb swollen with spring and the south

the open air casting shadows
filament threads weaving intricate tapestries

her posture spoke of differences between worlds
the thin edge of a window naked to the touch
drowning ancestors open their mouths at vast space
swallowing sense of self
the boat churning to horizons disappearing

this time she shifted into a strange stance
holding it for a long moment looking focused
lighter than usual yet
straining from the weight
she said
the weight of muted oceans—
panic is no longer an option

she took off all her clothes
letting them fall to the floor
they slid away from her as her hips swayed
as if standing proud upon the pier of a boat
rocking back and forth
eyes searched beyond middle grounds to horizons far removed

Friday, June 13, 2008

Carbondale, IL Historical Sights Continued





Longbranch Coffee House
Old Varsity Theater
Wheeler Hall 1903
Yellow Cab

Historical Sights of Carbondale, Illinois





These black and white images are photographs taken for Booby's Restaurant in Carbondale, Illinois. They are digitally printed on an Epson 3800 Archival Inkjet Printer using Ilford Glossy Paper.

-Altgeld Hall SIUC Campus 1896
-The old Dairy Queen 1952
-The Glove Factory
-Previous home of John A. Logan

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

day said no

inquisition

inquiry of the night--

darkness sat tied to a chair
the four legs stuck to dingy linoleum

by dry blood the verdict pronounced
decision

compromise


eclipse

Monday, June 9, 2008

prayer

in my mouth is a word
       pressed together
       tied with a string of sound
long moment-pause--gape--in between
the hierarchy of her thoughts 
climb upon the couch of my immobility 
beating the gaps expansion furiously--movement
her hand is growth hiding in a well on the inside
                         of palms (psalms) raised upward
soft light dark light illuminates dark eyes--hair 

prayer is not a conversation with god or goddess 

it is human consideration
verbalized clarity of wants needs worries disintegration affiliation raising-ation 
the shedding of confusion and fuss

our skin is elastic
everyday we ink our pours 
the history and silt of yesterday 
becomes today--

the river is misdirection 

(this) meditation is a word inside a mouth released
the forming takes place drifting slowing
from the sound wrapping around

inside my palm i dig a hole to place light pressed together
it grinds and grinds against dust settling knowing
intervention is not possible even with a working engine--
we cannot move to let the light out

the bible told me so

dedicating a few moments to swallowing the sky

with sharp shoulder blades the earth splits open
                                                                   & fauna are born
                                                            flora
constant as the rainy season
buried under deep grounds where people kneel
budding knowledge heavy--solid--rhythmic
the serpent wore a mask and it was grand
angels on her side with a bird named silence
eve was the tempter

Friday, June 6, 2008

a late night and the next day

still a feeling and a focus

tendril bounces to trip you up
split you up
legs this high and thighs to ride all because the music made me
but it’s fine

it’s fine—
trust is just
a story
between two people
there’s no more to tell
just a dry well and strawberry cake in the late afternoon

dust to dust

lost in the middle ground

where focus is neither fore(um) nor aft

blurred lines with upward hands project distilled images across the surface of the sky

the grace that left and marred the benevolent ground coxed her barely held form into the wind where
once exposed
vanished—leaving a cut in the air like a window without an edge

It's been a while-

I am gathering my wits, caught streaming in every direction, except towards my blog or the viewfinder. In attempt to lure my self-will onto the page and strengthen the disturbance I am nurturing I will dedicate time not only to pictures on the screen but also to works of word. I shall stretch out my arm to a distance well beyond visualized capacity, stoking fires brandishing dim coals hard for the eye to catch even in the blackest black.

Last night, over a couple of drinks, a kiss told me that some people are genetically predisposed to religious experiences . . . if a certain part of the temporal lobe cortex is stimulated by electrodes, the individual will have a 'divine' moment of insight. (Actually they ((they being the powers that be)) made a device for this specific sort of stimulation; a sort of helmet called the Transcranial Magnetic Fibulator
that delivers a slight current to the surface of the brain activating particular regions allowing the resulting effects to be studied.) “This is why some people with epilepsy experience the finger of godly understanding”, the kiss whispered, “what happens during a seizure is similar to what the helmet does”; she was very excited by this knowledge. Leaning forward and towards me, gesticulating with excitement, the kiss asked, “What does this say about a divine creator? Our own small existence within the universe? Enlightening religious experiences? Our universe is too perfect.” she said, “Gravity, the coming together of atoms, the particles of life . . . is it all too perfect to be chance or are we a random occurrence of matter coming together?” There is a theory, a multiple universe theory, which suggests our universe is the only one that could possibly support life. In all of our perfection, assuming that divine intervention is not a rational possible report, this theory states that there are a ga ga ga gazillion universes folding in and around and on top of one another and it took the spontaneous crashing and flinging and marrying of all those infinitely numbered particles and atoms to finally come together in a sequence that allowed the just-so-happening of things to create life. Life, therefore, is mere statistics; it just took enough moving around for it to finally happen . . . eventually, it was bound to come about.
So, with the experience of the divine a mere tickle of a frontal lobe region and with the perfection of our universe being nothing more than a bound-to-happen-given-enough-tries statistic, where does that leave human beings and the meaning of life? The only meaning, the only significance life has is what we apply to it. I say this, and after chewing on the information the kiss gave me, I still find it hard to believe . . . or rather I do not want to believe it. I do not think I am one of the fortunate souls who feel the significant experience of religious ecstasy burning through my blood. Instead I find a hole, an abyss when directly looked at elicits vertigo sucking in conscious thought, creeping toward my breath, stealing it away while encouraging my hands and feet to fail me. It flags me down in the middle of the night, forcing me to search wildly for something big enough, distracting enough, lovely enough to fill that dark space knowing that it will never be enough and I will never be able to stop looking for a substitute. Perhaps it is the awareness of this abyss, be it produced by the profound cultural emphasis on religion or it’s inexplicable reality that keeps me from wholly accepting our spontaneous molecular existence or a mere electric tickle of the brain to sum up divine experience. The kiss concluded by drinking her last draught of beer. She leaned in close so our lips were almost touching, millimeters apart and whispered, “It’s just like the space between . . . an infinite amount of particles ebb and flow. Nothing ever really touches, it is only our feelings and longing that create sensation, ecstasy, pain, meaning . . .”