in the time of writing poems
the words said no
they said
you have not earned us
you have not bled us from your fingertips
until your heart is a wrung-out rag
you have not wept
no stone has lodged itself in your intestines
cold lurking with the promise of pain
we owe you nothing
said the words
not knowing how they implicate themselves
liars every one
for here is the poem
that they
refused
to write
(April 2022)
I read this little book on the advice of Björk, and my scandalous older boyfriend who had a serious crush on Björk. To judge from modern reviews, it is still extremely divisive, with many considering it irredeemable trash, and others suggesting it’s wholly allegorical, though that may be a wildly optimistic reading of what is at its heart a very filthy book.
What’s interesting (read: strange and a little frightening) to me now was that on first reading, not a bit of it seemed deviant. Of course the main character lifted her skirt and sat in a saucer of milk within five minutes of meeting the narrator. Of course they abducted a beauty, then drove her out of her mind. Of course they went to Spain and… For those who know what happens by the end, you may wonder how I read the whole thing and barely flinched. I have theories, some of which I’ve illuminated in prior posts.
France wanted to hang Bataille for a while. I blew my college teacher’s mind by even owning a copy of the book, which she borrowed from me. I think I might have made her a mixed tape, but socially, not romantically. Oh, the ’90s.
If memory serves, I bought the book at The Mystic Bookshop, the source of many outrageous ideas and my philosophical oasis growing up in a very staid city in a fairly conservative part of the world. Thanks, Mystic Mike (as we called the snackable indie boy who worked there) and the whole Mystic crew for letting me spend hours thumbing through Re/Search books I could never afford to purchase.
The Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. YMMV.
one red leaf floats past
among the green
why did you leave me in autumn?
(2022)
Making meaning. Can that be a calling?
scribe
conduit
fingers blindly falling
vomiting poetry
verse coming out of my ears
words from my hands
words made of fears
that nothing ever will ever be
enough
we know it’s tough
we know
below
and to the left
of the main figure
the artist has hidden a self-portrait
reflected upside down in the bowl of that one spoon
laid beside the sugar
painted so well you expect to see yourself
(2022)
[Working through some personal goals in a journal, I wrote the first four lines unconsciously. Once I noticed, the rest became inevitable.]
when things become impossible
come find me
I won’t fix the things
I will take you and run
laughing
hand in hand
through the long green meadow past the woods
toward summer
(2022)
Never not new. Never not the stranger. The kid from overseas who looks normal but speaks weird. The unbaptized kid at the Catholic school, mouthing liturgy at morning mass because I’ve never heard it before (and imagine the brass of my parents to have straight up lied to the superintendent to get me a placement.) The one with weird hair. The nerd. The suck-up (I never, because if you’re a clever and quiet student, the teachers will suck up to you.)
The drop-out.
But it’s not a bad thing. None of these are bad things. I don’t put much faith in categories like bad/good, which seem firm and logical but are wholly subjective. It is, as one says, as it is. This is what happened, and it cannot be changed.
So then why do I say these events I describe ‘ruined’ me? Ruining implies a pristine state that can be defiled. To say a woman is ‘ruined’ used to (and in many cases still does) mean that she fucked before her wedding day. Ruined cities litter the earth, relics of human ambition, testaments to mortality’s deft hand and the way that all things end. Was I ever whole? Pristine? Or was that bit about Original Sin saying something else?
We are all stardust, strung together in fragile molecular webs that break and heal and break and heal and break until they cannot heal. No wonder we die, for surely it becomes too much, this being alive, this always being given things to touch and lose and want and find. We die and become stardust again. Is that the ruin? My too clear seeing of these webs, my fervent need to say “look, do you see the glory woven through it all?”
I believed in other worlds. All these things were proof. These moments, these shifts, these odd exposures I call the things that ruined me. Evidence that other worlds were real and that you could go to them. That nothing I saw around me had to be the way it was. That the future was full of more than the present could hold.
Is it the future yet?
Not only because it was fifty-two images of nearly naked men, but because I stole it from my mother’s sock drawer and brought it to school to show my schoolmates. If I could have only stayed that popular when I changed schools the following year…I might not be writing this sardonic internet commentary about the fleetingness of fame and my propensity for causing trouble.
I got away with it that time, and returned the cards to my mother’s drawer. It’s so long ago, but there are faint memories of creeping into her room to revisit the cards. Much of a muchness, fifty-two oiled torsos, numerous thighs, and in the centre of each, a satin or leather-clad implication of what men were really like.
I knew so few men in those days. My parents had separated and my father lived overseas. My mother didn’t date and had a modest social circle, and so my interactions with adult men were limited to teachers. Growing up, attraction and response were a muddle. I was almost always surprised when someone kissed me. I almost always chose to kiss them back.
There’s a specific absence in my upbringing. When others were being warned off sex, being taught it was vile, evil, degrading, dangerous, I learned nothing. This hasn’t harmed me over the long term, though I have made some spectacularly bad decisions. People who learn to fear sex also make bad decisions, and hate themselves while doing so. Between the two, I know what I’d choose.
If you have a rich inner dialog , one of those voices is probably the bartender. Allow them to delight your many selves with one of the following recipes, crafted to unpick the neural knots of decades of compulsive overstimulation. Choose from:
Black tea with a side of buttered toast. May be served continually and at any time throughout the day as required to maintain decorum
Steamed milk with instant decaf to provide the experience of a latte made with high-grade espresso, but without interfering with your meds
Literally any drink that will effectively distract you from craving alcohol
(All recipes by The Fixer, some fairly insignificant rights reserved)
There is no future
without our feet dancing it into being
hips slide and a universe arises
spiraling through
leaving a trail of glory
There is no future
times slinks animal-like
no thicker than skin
a thread stretching between us
There is no future
be glad there was never a future
only freedom
coldly inexhaustible
a stone in the palm of your hand
begging to be thrown
(2022)
the algorithm told me to post poems on a Thursday
the algorithm thinks that poems rhyme
the algorithm doesn’t think
it’s only code
two digits
what happens if I don’t fi
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