I want to go here someday.

Untitled

Hands that ghost across the planes
of a handcrafted dress—
something borrowed and blue—
wend their way into my hands:
hands crinoline from too much work,
hands with clotted joints and ragged fingernails,
hands becoming kilns when wedded
with yours.

This must be documented

Recently, I overheard this conversation at Kopi in downtown Champaign:

“What did you write?”

“‘A dog wears a bowtie; white clouds, blue sky.’”

“That sounds like poetry.”

“IT IS!…That’s enlightened poetry.”

as if possessed by the divine

I recently saw an episode of This American Life on Catholic people who go to the Mojave desert in CA to take pictures of the sun hoping to capture an image of the Virgin Mary. In the episode, Ira Glass asks, “Of course, if god is everywhere and you already believe in god–no question about that–why do you need a picture?”

The whole situation perplexed me, so I tried shooting the sun in Champaign.

When I took pictures of the sun, though, I found that it hurt my eyes to look at them. It is as if each image stole a piece of the sun.

Virgin Mary Sightings in the Mojave Desert

I gave this to myself as a gift.

Here are the photos of my book.

The full set of photos are here.

One Minute, One Shot

My short video piece the catch is premiering at the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art tomorrow! Here is their website.

I gave this to myself as a gift.

[this is the text from my book, I gave this to myself as a gift. I will upload pics of the book soon.]

do you see the way these pages curl when written upon or touched?

like a lilting body

a ringlet

confronting (withstanding) gravity

do you see the way my flesh curls when looked upon or touched?

it’s a craving of body for stillness

for quiet

for repletion

She, Shiva

She, Shiva

Cull, Shiva, Cull, Cull:

I’ve sewn your name into the sound

of singing cups

and received nothing in return.

Your touch, voluminous,

and built of quiet warmth–

my bones are all but broken

under strain of you.

Streets daisy-chained to red brick buildings–

pressed close to touching,

white at the seams, and bending

out of view–

are lined with brown leather suitcases

filled with letters of leaving

and the smell of almond.

The children, snot-nosed and hungry,

will coax fire from ember

and chant your name in rounds

of double-dutch:

Cull, Shiva, cull, cull.

And they will wonder at their will

to speak, their perspicacity.

Your words, meanwhile, are left

to the fate of dowsing rods.

imagery

morning sun peering through the blue light of a passing storm

breeze pushing curtains

filling the house–stiff with the stale of winter

possessed by the divine

wind making waves of water
like sand
rippling
puckering
like fabric
as if possessed by the divine