Self Portrait - Right Hand

Spring 2008
4'' x 4'' and 4'' x 5''
Pencil and chalk on coloured paper

Is This How We'll Be in the Spring?

February 4, 2010

48'' x 30''

Paper, coffee, gold leaf on canvas

See Far Poles, part ii for the reference.

Room 1051

From the tenth floor, I see no difference between animal and ♂. I know that what you've given me is no accomodation of both.

From the tenth floor, I
wait for all things personal
to arrive, in taxicabs, or
walking on the street, or
slipping satin dressing gowns
from sunburnt shoulders. I
fail to see the good when it arrives.
I wait.

I wait for change, an end to waiting, for
the next, the very next car to
come around that corner to
be the one which bears you
to my door, and all your colours flying,
and all your colours flying
in the flaying, thrashing wind. I
cannot bear the wading
any longer into spring, cannot
take the subtle merging,
without borders, without
soul, without soil on which to claim,
''Here I stand, come high water,
come the fever, I remain.''

On the tenth floor, I am barren; I am
February morning. I am
February burning. I am
water, I am dust.
From behind the parted curtains comes
a crooning, comes a whirring,
comes a steady billow blowing
through the ever-present window,
where the omnipresent shadow
hasn't yet made its terrain.

I am burning.
I am burning.
On the tenth floor, I am yearning
for the onset of the rain.

Plateau Waking

Change, time of
turning 'round the earth's solar axis, I weave
circles in my study,
in my study, winter body
seated firmly on the floor
beneath your window, under mountain,
on the yellow-sided mountain
where the murmurs of the morning
pause to hear the river growling.
Far below, the ice is breaking
on embankments, on our door.

Far below, the city waking
to the smells of sun returning,
climbing surely up the hillside,
frozen hillside, ice is leading
farther north. I follow, brushes
in my hands and in my pockets,
weaving circles, tracing runs among
the brambles and the thickets.

Farther north, I hear the calling
of the ancient sun returning,
of the streets below me moving
to a more familiar rhythm,
weaving motion over soil,
over pavement, over stone.
The rustle of a million
sets of footprints, city breathing,
beating slowly in the morning,
in the thawing, in the cold.

Goblin Fruit

Goblin Fruit
February 3, 2010
5'' x 8''
Pencil on paper


i)
I loved you because you were sad,
damaged goods, lost and
(ir)retrieveable.
Am I really one of those ♀
who yearns to find and repair old broken souls?
Soothe, stitch it up,
wish,
wish,
wish it was up
to me to make everything right.
Me to make you right.

ii)
In some villages, in some
times, there was some-
one called a sin-eater, struck
dumb by the weight of
sorrow ingested
along with the meals she was offered
to consume the bulk of the departed
one's crimes.

Times
have changed, you say, but still
you pay
me with sweets, sullen meals,
grudging generosity,
to swallow,
and swallow,
and take in your misery.

iii)
I loved your poet's eyes,
musician's hands,
I loved your nineteenth-century soul, so full of
aching empty spaces.
I dreamed you an enchanted lover, tree spirit
of the ancient dark forest, your
bed a nest, your
room a cave.

iv)
Ah, child, but child,
you knew
you've heard the stories,
how those who enter the wood
in autumn, time of turning
too often lose their way
and stray
unknowingly down, under
root, under
ground,
and to once taste the goblin fruit
is to stay.

Ah, child, you slept in his nest, you
ate of his sickly sweets, you
ate of his sickly sins, you
stayed.

And Worried by My Calm

And Worried by My Calm

January 28, 2010

48'' x 30''

Coffee, paper, gold leaf on canvas.

See 4th Act, part ii for the reference.