a mouse lives in my breast

or is it a bird? better to be a bird if this is to be a proper poem -- form fitting -- bird to wing-bird, like a hanger, or hinge-broke. I brokered for a clean bill

of health, I know nothing, only that it's a quiet thing that glows and sputters

the x-rays made a map; we looked at it together

a broken bolt held under

not like water but a type of fluid, pinkly clear

a body is so much of something to hold

I almost let it get away from me

the body is a ghost

or host to ghosts -- cells &
helicopter text ticky-type
and symptom syntax of every
physical memory crushed
into tell-all fibers
and clues -- fibbers &
the glue-clock pushing
through. The inside marks
where bone tics two by two
legs arms hands and mirrors
say two heads too. False
eyelashes and blue mascara
the blue-green veins pulled
through, suffused with pills:
powder dolls. Our little body
house too full -- there's
nothing else to do save
cutting through and then
stitch stitch new & ta-da!
it isn't them -- it's you --
the ghost you never
knew you knew.

Fear

The recurring image is that I'm on some sort of conveyor belt heading toward chopping jaws -- serrated, hungry -- and I can't get off.

There is too much information. It is too confusing.

The system is overwhelmed.

There is more bargaining.

There is a fantasy of being disembodied, serene. Another fantasy is of being buoyant, tranquil. There is water and sun and warmth.

Today, we walked on the bluffs that overlook the beach. I was iced, medicated. It is our fifth wedding anniversary. I scan the horizon for breaching whales, diving pelicans, otters floating in the kelp. We hold hands and I am so thankful that I am not alone, although I resent the injury and how it has taken over my body, our lives. Later, down the path, a rabbit darts out of the brush and pauses, one paw raised, and then scampers off. Two girls pull a wagon full of pillows, and atop the pillows is another girl. She is lazily eating from a box of fig newtons They're playing a game, they tell us, and I feel happy for them. The ocean air is sweet and crisp and I imagine leaping off the cliff into the waves. I crave the weightlessness of being in water.

The thing is, I'm terrified of having surgery, and today, as I read through the files I'd requested from the doctor's office, I see that all the arrows point to it. I'm worried that if I decline surgery, I will be punished. I've been told the my condition will be declared "permanent and stationary." I took messy notes in shorthand, but how can I remember in this haze? It's happening too fast.

May Day

Today I hit my head on a tree branch because I was chasing a duck. The duck was new and frightened, and when the gate swung open and offered a moment of escape, she bolted. I chased her around the large yard. We made several laps. J was shouting, "grab her neck!", but I was too timid. I am always afraid that I will hurt a bird. Or even if I am not worried about causing injury, I worry about causing distress. It must be frightening to be grabbed swiftly by the neck and then enfolded in a human's arms.

I have been thinking about humaness. Not humanity, but rather the characteristics of a "human." We went to LACMA to see the new contemporary art wing and the "Sightings" exhibit (both of which were really great), and I found myself hyper-aware of expressions of "humaness." It was like a series of rapid-fire disruptions (in a good way), but I was absolutely rattled and raw by the time we made it down to the bottom floor of the Broad where the two Serra sculptures made me feel utterly terrified.

After hitting my head, I thought it best to try and herd the duck back into the enclosure rather than continue trying to catch her. After many more laps around the yard, she tentatively waddled into the grassy, fenced area. J scooped her up, and we both gently parted her wings so we could inspect her back, which was featherless and appeared to be injured. The area was dark with scabs -- a large one in the middle and then a scattering out to the side. What did this? Another bird? A human? J held her while I applied a few drops of colloidal silver to her skin. Then we put her on the grass and it was time for me to go home and shower and ready myself for the next part of my day.

Foxglove (blood for oil)

As if it's made for loving: hollows
and veils, speckled
frolic over thin skin. I'm all
for moving. The wells dry
up and we're stranded
here, contractions obligating
rhythm, but the labor
disappears. Borders
dredged by bastards, our
hands swelling. If you
insist, I'll pick, but everyone
will know we're scared.

post bellum letters

Making the notes section for the bellumletters chap, I'm struck how it too is a poem. The juxtaposition of text, rather than the sort of layering text that linking constructs, is effective in a way that is at once more and less familiar. Like looking in glossary or appendix, but also disorienting. The mapping of virtual space that is this troubling information which is always under everything produced by an imperialistic, capitalist machine. A palimpsest or x-ray. And what to do? Perceive the limits of geography or feel the limits dissolved? Pretend to comprehend? Fight? Play dead? And there are so many bombs with names like "dumb" and "pineapple" -- and uranium and planes and tanks and people people people people people people. It is a lie to feel any war is far away. A weirdly loose knitting made by fake text and metal.

BellumLetters # 17

"domestic incident"

One thing, a peg on the board, could
be isolated. Pushed forward along
the block to block path that swayed
front to back and back; the peg
moved dully along. The trained eye
does not blink back. They
are trained to not come back.
Roving the boxed-in track, the pegs
truck along. Not in halves or pairs
or packs, no door-to-door knocking.
No knocked over bottles. No
pink babies in the back. Only
the tick tick tick as the lines
thicken and sink. One by one
as elsewhere ink overflows its gutters.

BellumLetters # 16

Everyone Came Running


No hands: x-ray breast laced with lead, bullet
in the house come chasing skin. Flame
cells happened the way snow held
glass, magnifying everything.

honey bee s.o.s.

This can't be good.

march

no war remembered how our hands held
or if the green sun was for growing
old or growing rain. There are numbers
I cannot understand and a glass hum
like saucers tilting away from
from oceans. A disc set
to spin as tires clear and darken.
Machine wreaths ringing halos
that clasp and sharpen
palms to palm-arrows
mining chime-shattered lines.

fun with letters and animals

type is art is really fun. I like seeing all the parts of the letters broken up. I especially like the swash and bowl. The spur and stem are also nice.

I'd like to learn more about different types of scripts and characters.

Today I learned about the difference between California gulls and western gulls. I have a particular fondness for Hermann's gulls. At the seabird pond, the western gulls are by far the loudest and boldest.

Tim Hawkinson:

“I often — not really hallucinate — but I see something that I think is one thing but it’s actually another thing,” he said, “and I realize the visual slip and find it kind of intriguing.”

The uberorgan is amazing. I also learned this word: Zoopsia (n.): visual hallucination of animals.

I've also started a very silly blog with Jenny Rowe.

This scares me. I like it.