what am i doing here?
i was sitting in class, and the professer was going through slide after slide of "imortant scultures" and dropping names and "you can see his expressive use of line to define a planer form..." i picked up my bag and left. i don't want to have anything to do with that kind of art. there are no important sculptures. sculptures are just not important. to discuss a form's use of line -- or worse, to pay someone to tell you about it, is just stupid. what's more, i thought most of was ugly and boring.
and when i don't have enough time to read all the things i want to read, and to think about the things i'd like to and create the kinds of things i actually want to see in the world, i hate that this is the way i spend my time. i feel like everyone else is in on the joke except for me. it's the emperor's new clothes. it's useless and joyless and pretentious.
fuck that kind of art. im not that kind of artist.
last night, for one whole stop, anna and i had an entire subway car to ourselves. i danced up and down the car, because i can't usually do that.
do you ever sit in an empty room, and think about all the people who have ever passed through it, and imagine that they left something of themselves behind, as though, even if they don't know it, you are interacting with them by being in the same space. when i think about that, it makes me smile to think about rush hour and all those people crammed together and ignoring each other, and carolyn, unseen to them, skipping up and down....
you exist now
in basement colored memories:
grainy web-cam smiles
in the back of my mind
and a vague notion
that i used to think of sun-halos,
salad greens, olive greens
and olive oil
when i thought of you.
i reached into my pocket:
a fistfull of vague notions
to thrust clumsily under your nose
i saw a woman today
with glossy black eyes
that flickered like snakes' tongues
along the subway wall
i saw a beautiful boy on the subway
he was the type the gods would like to boink
the oscar wilde type
a real dorian grey.
i studied his face for three stops
and i never caught his eye.
there she is
seven years ago
she's reading christopher pike
for maybe gods
and greek mythology
for would-be gods
and searching the bible
for entertainment
while she's skipping church.
she's taller than i remember
hasn't grown an inch in seven years
and it took so long to get back to where she started
but look how far she's come.
she's just where i left her
archie comics, love advice
lying to strangers on the internet
and drinking chocolate milk
and she's just where i left her
behind
treading water
and it's such a long way back
i got a phone call from a persuasive friend and hopped on the go-train to oakville. i got high, and came home in the early morning. i'm not going to school today. it's far too cold outside.
he looks at me like surface area
and he speaks to me like a fantasy
and he ignores me like i'm not around
and i hope that nothing changes
these are the notes i took in class:
it was a cold february 14th, and nothing looked like anything
tony curtis stood in prefab house on utopia and 37th
he said an artist used to live here
and he wasn't so different from the old men my parents drink coffee with at church.
is it still art if it doesn't need explaining?
i wore a glass mask that night, with a smile frozen in it.
i could tell from the way his fingers moved on guitar stings
that he was the very habit i was trying to break.
he said, "i watched the parachute jump caking in the moonlight."
he painted blue, my yellow thoughts of spring
i thought i saw you smile at me before i ran away
there's no harsh light in the wanderer
i'd read to myself, but i'm tired of my own voice
thus: he stumbled
in the fading light
i like my lonesome
when i'm alone
in my bed at night
i'll feel much warmer
when i'm alone.
i hate when i have nothing interesting to write.
fractions:
#1
despite
dim light
he said "i think you've changed the colour of your hair,"
and he was right.
#2
it's just like sunday morning,
but it's sunday afternoon,
and i don't want to be
here in the dining room
with sleep and my eyes
and a lump in my throat
singing someone else's song
while dinah strums along.
#3
my lips are crooked
and you kiss them sideways.
June 21, 2002 - 12:17 pm
don't think of me as you walk away
with your head bent.
imagine your eyelids as shields as you walk.
imagine they're growing; they're separate from you.
they're umbrellas pointed into the wind.
feel the air move across them,
move around them,
cooler than the rest of your face.
feel your eyelashes light on your cheeks.
feel your eyelids crease,
fold into themselves,
as you look up.
feel the door handle in your hand.
feel how naturally, how thoughtlessly, you pull open the door.
feel the sunshine cling red on your eyelids,
your cheeks,
your shoulders.
watch your feet.
notice how the ground arches and bends under them as you walk.
imagine the earth moving under you
as you stand static,
as if perched on a giant ball.
feel the ground through the soles of your shoes;
the gravel, the cracks in the pavement.
why is it that no one thinks of the way pavement feels through rubber soles?
think of this.
but don't think of me as you walk away
with your head bent.
robin- boy wonder says: what's this on your computer? B)
Jen says: my computer?
robin- boy wonder says: your msn
Jen says: a guy with glasses
robin- boy wonder says: oh. this? >:|
Jen says: angry
robin- boy wonder says: this? (@)
Jen says: a guy sniffing crack
Jen says: what does bunning mean?
so here am i trying to remember what is old and what is new,
forgetting it's hard to be forgetting you.
maybe i should stick this out.
it's not so bad tonight.
there are to ways to put your mind at rest. religion or lobotomy.
i spent new years eve with lynn. we had raspberry daiquiris at kat's place, and too-strong bloody marys with rob's trendy friends at matty's. at the scherzo i saw dave and chris morris. rift-raft was playing and kyle gave me champagne and a new-years kiss at midnight. pat bought me a beer at a private party at the g-spot. lynn and i went home and talked for a few hours. it was a good night.
from station to station with slight variations
seldom a map, and a few roach traps
I always seem to come back
walking the railroad tracks
I sing with every breath in my lungs
with a pack
flung over the shoulder
with poems in a folder
I always seem to stumble back
to carolyn
and all the strange delights there in
my best friend
whom knows all my jokes but laughs anyways
and plays along with my games in spades
this is a toast to my anxiety
and my friend who quells that inside me
-aj little
