i would that it were so simple

Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, “This is the real me,” and when you have found that attitude, follow it.
– William James

what he doesn’t tell you is what to do if the seeking, and the places you have to go to find the feeling, to hear the voice, to shape that attitude-enlivened skin to crawl inside, is paradoxical, what to do when in order to “feel most deeply and most vitally alive” you have to live in a past that isn’t anymore, or invent a future, or walk out of a place you thought was perfect, and in so doing have to kill one facet of that real-ness to follow another, or destroy someone else’s to go chasing after the improbable ghost of your own.

i know what it feels like, and i have more than a few tricks for finding it, for waking up there, for unveiling, for a tiny, stolen (but from whom?) moment, mirrors that show me the face i recognize instead of the one i’ve gotten used to seeing in its place, but these are ephemeral visons. what i’d have to lose to reach after the real thing–a singing-voice, legs without knives, a couple hundred-years of being princessed? and in return, no guarantees; our children might not know, but we do: in the real tale, she loses the bet & turns to sea foam, all alone.

some of us need more tangible souvenirs

memory is really fucked up sometimes.

weird times. about weird things. i have so much useless shit in my head that i totally don’t need. dukes of hazard theme song, anyone? and i know i’ve forgotten a million things that might come in really handy if i hadn’t, like, oh, i don’t know, 9/10 of what i’ve read this semester for the class i have an exam in next week? if i don’t think about it too hard, i still know what a kukui nut smells like, and i haven’t encountered one of those since i was 12 or so. not like that’s a life-skill; on the other hand, i’m sure i’ve been subjected to any number of “here’s how you put the spare tire on your car, silly, will you pay ATTENTION?!” lectures, & i can’t remember any of them. (fortunately w/o a car, i don’t much need that skill right now, although i’m sure at some point i’ll be sorry for having been cavalier today.)

“i know,” i said, “i have a letter around here somewhere from your mother. it had to do with a picture or something. she was very polite.”
“why in the world would you have a letter from my mother?!”

i remember things as trends that, when i pull together evidence & lay it out along the floor, were isolated incidents, often in the singular. i remember in the singular things said as revelations every time so often that anymore they can’t be categorized as anything but trends.

i found the letter from his mother, post-marked 1995. it’s about a gift, not a picture; i think it had a picture in it that she sent me. i didn’t make that up, any more than i made up or misremembered which backyard what happened in or who was there in the story with the hairdryer, but i’ll be damned if i can explain how those words, which were so clear, could ever have pointed out the road that led to here.

and i’ll be damned if i know what i was doing when i wasn’t following where they were so unambiguously asking me to go.

actually, no.

ann landers today:

Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky. Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-knowledge. It’s the sure footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life.

i could almost continue this for her: “so, as you can see, if you don’t have class, or people say you don’t, or you’re categorized or categorize yourself as being a member of a low class, it’s not because you can’t afford to shop anywhere but at the wal-mart, or because, sweet as your daddy is, he’s a drunk with an 8th grade education who didn’t know how to help you get ahold of any better opportunities than the ones your resource-deprived & underpaid school counselors could come up with, and you couldn’t afford that car to get you to the community college, nevermind paying for tuition & books & gasoline & somebody to watch the baby. no, it’s because you lack self-discipline, self-confidence. you just don’t know yourself. you’re a coward who hasn’t proven that you can ‘meet life'”–and who’s administering those tests again? who are we supposed to prove it to? and i wonder where she thinks that confidence comes from, if not from privilege, from being able to take enough of this for granted that you can focus on self-knowledge, from being well-equipped to “meet life” because the right people were there to teach you the appropriate handshakes?

can somebody please tell me what makes this any less a victim-rhetoric than saying “well, we don’t think rape is okay or anything, but she did go out wearing that dress…”

no wonder we can’t have a half-cogent conversation about class in this country.

(xp to c&a)

heh.

1) great sneakery is afoot, & i love when that happens. hee, hee, hee. & hey, t, it’s naught to do w/you this time!

2) last sneakery was successful. for those of you who were wondering, l_stboy found in his mailbox yesterday “a random package from some podunk town in vermont with a cd in it that says it’s from” me. it’s not from me, it’s antje’s cd, & her singing, & her signature, & her (it’s not nice to call it) podunk address. it was just me who asked her to do it, & told her who to send it to. he doesn’t seem to have been nearly as impressed by this stunt as i was impressed with myself for pulling it off, but, really, being that impressed with myself was reward enough. i had fun! & so did my friend antje, who thinks i’m funny, & liked that other poem, too, t, the one about you, & don’t you wish you knew what i was talking about.

i did warn you.

3) pdxstraycat is fantastic & sweet & dear & wonderful, & gets extra-bonus-points for encouraging him & participating. also she made us the best dinner on EARTH, but he said he was going to post about that, so i’ll be good and let him.

::beams::

why it’s cool to be a mammal

this is probably going to disgust a few people, but i think it’s fantastic. i’m totally charmed. baby tigers, people! really, this probably says something about biology & the ticking of time, dunnit?

motherfscking pearls

---

i wasn’t much of a poet
guess i was missing the anguish
not a very good lover
could never capture the language
i was an adequate painter
but it just left me tired
did a stint as a hit man
in those days at least i was inspired…

---

what happened to the beauty inside of me?

---

creepy

two little girls across the street from my porch are chanting a little rhyme over and over. & holding hands, swaying their arms, smiling, kind of wandering around in the yard to stay out of reach of their even littler brother (i’d guess they’re 6 and 5 and he’s 3?). & their soft black hair is in bouyant little braids, in pastel clips that match their outfits, & thier voices are young, high, harmonic, & beautiful.

here’s what they’re singing, over and over and over:

tic tac toe
three-in-a-row
momma got shot
by a g.i. joe

over and over and over.

shout-out

prof & colleague scott richard lyons, testifyin’.

red lake nation (the link takes you to an editorial he wrote for ICT at the end of last month, which i confess i’m not as a faithful a reader of as i’d like to be, & so which article i only found out about in class yesterday.)

if the things you care about include america, native america, respect, children, community… read this.

Protected: don’t tell him i said this, but

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

poetry consolidated 18

171. in the shadow of the magic mirror
172. cascading
173. slide
174. thrift-store shoes
175. past the breakers
176. hagiography
177. with a flashlight at the moment of your vernal equinox
178. message without a bottle
179. riddle me (holes or passageways?):____________
180. born sisyphean

i’m almost a week behind already. there’s more out there, some of it facing backwards (the bold-faced numbers aren’t the poetry they used to be) & yes, 179 is a riddle. you’re supposed to guess what goes in the blank, although i don’t know (authorial authenticity & all of that) whether or not i’m supposed to tell you–what it means to you is what it means, after all; maybe it’s just a narcissistic game to get you to play to see who else can see what i meant!