feeling productive?
is it the moon?
i don’t know
i’m exhausted
but keeping myself from sleep…
last night(?) i went to sleep shortly after dawn
woke shortly after noon
and did some dishes
enjoying the sun break in the clouds…
i realized pretty quick that if i wanted to go for a walk
i should do it fast
coz things were getting ominous and grey out there…
but the house was such a mess!
Rick and Leo are both King Heathens (no, i mean Headonists)
there were wine glasses, chamagne glasses, absinth glasses
soup bowls, plates, desert, chocolate
a million pots and pans
all piled up
groggily
i waded through them
and when i noticed the sun had fled and left me with grey
i laced up my boots and headed out the door
realizing immediately
that i would not be able to walk the mile down the hill
and back up
and not be totally drenched
( i thought i might go fetch the mail… )
so
instead
grabbed the Matlock and Spade from the shed
and strutted off down the road…
these hand-made steele-toed Red Wing boots are a work out in themselves…
makes me feel like a heavy man
instead of the waif that i am..
(especially so sleep deprived)
i walked through the naked forest
to the small ravine before the crest of the hill that devides the plates up here
(granite from obsidian)
and set about figuring out how to fix the water problem:
when it rains a hugs pool forms that i have to drive very slowly through….
so i started digging a drainage ditch…
i was surprised
it worked so well
and the little lickings of water pouring down the embankment brought glee to my face
mud spattered all over my boots
droplets starting to scar the surface of the murkey waters
i dredged out a path down the forest into a suspicious pit (why was it there?)
the headed back up towards the house…
i kept wanting to fill in holes in the road..
but the rain was getting harder
and i was already coughing up phlem
“you’ll get pnemonia” some mother was saying in my ear
so i ran home and threw the tools in the shed
moist and hot
ate some dates and yogurt
and put on Badly Drawn Boy’s “One plus One is One”
both this CD and the new Rufus Wainwright’s
make me feel like these guys are just throwing together thoughts and feelings
in a lazily orhcestrated way
not really Art
just putting it out there…
follow this up by then watching Jim Jarmusch’s “Myster Train” tonight
it reminds me how easy it is to make art…
you just Make it
in today’s culture
we don’t need discipline nor any skill or talent
just free expression
OK
i guess that’s what my journal is
but i’ve got more to do than that
stay tuned…
but for now
i’m going to try to sleep
tea in hand
eyes going bleary
hopefully i’ll feel better when i wake
coz as i am now
i don’t want to go travelling or bearing or faerying or anything
i just want to stay home and taunt sex and read novels and cook for myself
sleep
right
answers come in dreams.
this song found me again tonight
it had been given to me by my Leo Lover in Amsterdam
a Tango Singer from Paraguay…
he kept me on my knees
kept my eyes staring after him with his beauty
i read “The Beauty of the Husband” in various book stores around the city
28 tangos
“on a june evening, hold…hold beauty”
“i’ll be reborn”
my lover taught me
gave me the sheet to read in front of the class
i did
and found the song eventually
a war march
so dramatic and tortured
today it was back in my head
a prelude to the new year
some new year or other
i just read the lyrics
and thought
when could i ever post this?
now, obviously
as a journal goes
i’ve stayed up all night
my body is sore
i’m going to sleep now
but first
i’ll leave you with this song
(which actually follows my last post quite well
but mostly in that which i didn’t say, only drew around)
Hold…
PRELUDIO PARA EL AÑO 3001
Prelude for the year 3001
Music by: Astor Piazzolla
Lyrics by: Horacio Ferrer
Version en castellano
Renaceré en Buenos Aires en otra tarde de junio
con esas ganas tremendas de querer y de vivir.
Renaceré fatalmente, será el año 3001
y habrá un domingo de otoño por la Plaza San Martín.
Le ladrarán a mi sombra los perritos vagabundos,
con mi modesto equipage llegaré del más allá
y arrodillada en mi Río de la Plata lindo y sucio,
me amasaré otro incansable corazón de barro y sal
y vendrán tres lustrabotas, tres payasos y tres brujos,
mis inmortales compinches gritándome!fuerza ché!
Nacé, nacé, dale vida, metéle hermano que es duro
pero muy bueno el oficio de morir y renacer.
Renaceré, renaceré, renaceré,
y una gran voz extraterrestre me dará la fuerza antigua
y dolorosa de la fé para volver, para creer, para luchar.
Tendré un clavel de otro planeta en el ojal,
porque si nadie ha renacido, yo podré.
Mi Buenos Aires, siglo treinta, ya verás,
renaceré, renaceré, renaceré.
Renaceré de las cosas que he querido mucho, mucho,
cuando los dioses de casa digan bajito “volvió”,
yo besaré la memoria de tus ojos taciturnos
para seguirte el poema que a medio hacer me quedó,
renaceré en las frutas de un mercado con laburo
y de la mugre serena de un romántico café,
de un sideral subterráneo, Plaza de Mayo a Saturno
y de una bronca de obreros en el sur, renaceré,
pero verás que renazco en el año 3001
y con muchachos y chicas, que no han sido y que serán,
bendeciremos la tierra, tierra nuestra y te lo juro
que a Buenos Aires de nuevo nos pondremos a fundar.
Renaceré…
English version:
I’ll be reborn in Buenos Aires in another June afternoon
with a tremendous desire to love and to live.
I’ll be reborn fatally, it will the year 3001
and there will be a Autumn Sunday at San Martin square.
Little stray dogs will bark at my shadow,
with my modest baggage I’ll arrive from the beyond
and kneeling down on my dirty and pretty River Plate,
I’ll knead me another tireless heart of mud and salt
and three shoe shiners, three clowns and three sorcerers will come, my immortal accomplices cheering: Hey, you, let’s go!
Be born, be born, let’s go life, go ahead brother that it is hard
but good the task to die and to be reborn.
I’ll be reborn, I’ll be reborn, I’ll be reborn,
and a great extraterrestrial voice will restore the strength, old
and painful, of the faith to return, to grow, to fight.
I’ll wear a carnation from another planet on my lapel,
because if nobody has reborn, I will.
My Buenos Aires, thirtieth century, you’ll see,
I’ll be reborn, I’ll be reborn, I’ll be reborn.
I’ll be reborn of the things that I loved so much, so much,
when the gods at home softly tell, “he came back,”
I’ll kiss the memory of your sleepy eyes
to continue the poem that I left incomplete half way through,
I’ll be reborn in the fruits of a working marketplace
and from the serene filth of a romantic cafe,
from a sidereal subway, Plaza de Mayo to Saturn
and from an uprising of workers in the South, I’ll be reborn,
but you’ll see that I’m reborn in the year 3001
and with boys and girls, who have not been and will be,
I’ll bless the land, our land and I swear to you
that we will found Buenos Aires again.
I’ll be reborn…
it looks like we’ll have chrstmas after all this year, dear!
i always like to think of what i was doing a year ago…
i do it many times throughout the year
but especially on these days we use as Markers…
these… HolyDays…
i kept thinking to myself…
–i don’t even remember what i was doing during christmas last year–
but then, i ususally don’t.
what’d i do 2003?
i think i was at a Billy thing with Leo and then we spent the morning together?
looking through my email
i realized i was preparing to head to Brazil..
Yes
Leo and i were together
and then headed up to Heartwood together to attend the Billy New Year
and then i went down to SF for a week then LA for a few days
then… BRAZIL.
2002?
Ah.
i was in London with Yacov
he made a big to-do about Christmas
even though he’s a cHessidic Jew
he loved the festivities
which i found tedious as all hell
the gifts were all cheesy…
a bunch of kids came over
the boarders of the house…
these two sweet dykes from LA
and some Koreans and an Iraqi boy?
we were all drunk and stoned
cheap gifts
and i was at the end of my teather…
then i flew back to the USA the morning of the 1st to go directly to Eli’s house to help him with his family
as his dad had just died of a “Randomn Prion Related Illness”
(basically Mad Cow Disease here in Santa Rosa)
Right.
and 2001?
that was the year i lived up at the hermitage alone
and i’m pretty sure i went to the billy new year …
but i think i slept away christmas …
i think i just stayed in bed..
i had forgotten even that
but Eli had told me he’d called me and i’d groggily explained i’d not even got out of bed…
and i probably didn’t.
Defiance!
of what?
i remember, back in those years
(yes, i’ll just finish it off: 2000 i was living at Heartwood and we had a pajama party in the morning with four different kind of pan cakes and bacon even! we all watched cartoons with stuffed animals… then the billys came… and Sara… and she gave me mushroom tea…)
i felt like i was on the brink of time…
in 2002
after watching Amilie
i was so blissed out
somewhere in my heart clicked
and i realized if i just walked across time to where i had been wounded once there
i could heal it with a kiss
and as i turned my face
and the celestial winds of time began to blow
Yacov came running in from the kitchen almost screaming
“Dominic!!!! WOULD YOU LIKE SOME TEA!???!”
to snap me back into place…
at heartwood that year
i had gone to a party at the big cobb house..
amazing really… incredibly beautiful…
i started talking with this Faery girl
and she offered me some mushroom tea a friend of her’s had made..
apparently she’d been on mushrooms for… months?
i drank it and took off all my clothes
i walked out into the winter night
found myself amongs frost-tipped grasses
and bare trees
i planted my feet and streatched out my arms
and let myself be as cold as they were
to let all the stuff in me die that needed to die…
i cultivated death
kept it close
used it as a tool
frozed
i felt reborn
and walked back into the heat of the party
and danced
danced til the fires burned down and there were only a few of us left
our lives huge merkabas extending out past anything as simple as space and time
we all got together in a tight group
three or four or five of us?
we started singing
and our song would spread into eachother and open us further
like a great organ
we harmonized
and expanded
resonating with eachother
and i knew
if we could just open fully
we could sing eternally
never having to breathe
cease
sleep
the sun would rise
and the light would shine throug us
and everything would be infinite light…
but we couldn’t
and when the song came to quiet
we all stood there awkwardly in evident defeat
condemned to another night of dreaming
and forgetting
and yet another day of stumbling through it all..
on the walk back to my place
i lingered around the now-wet and cold fire pit
and sara and saggi came up to me
i showed them my Kyanite
and sara danced around the word
“Mr. Wizard”
she called me
“tell me what it does”
and i explained
and i told a story
and we all told a story together
in the cold and the wet
and the bright light of the moon
going off to sleep alone
like i was
or in love
like they were
trundling through the mud…
then i spiral off into the dark pool of my thoughts and plans…
oh god
it smells so good in here
to light a fire…
drag in the whole manzanita tree picked up from the wreckage outside
roots first
burn
it smells so good
and now i’ve lit a fire
it’s not so cold
i look outside
and everything is bathed in light
oh god
it’s so
“BEAUTIFUL”
i shout into the forest
the forest without leaves!
bare forest!
winter forest!
“BEAUTIFUL”
i scream
and start running around
“AND YOU’LL ALL BE COVERED IN SNOW IN A FEW DAYS?!?!”
Leo told me a huge snow storm would be upon us by saturday through wednesday
WOW
a white christmas or something
it’s so fucking beautiful up here
the stars are all like glitter fish
like flassing daggers
swimming back and forth between the black branches
i made twittering bird sounds into the night
animals scattering through the leaves
i heaved my feet back to the house and opened the door
OH GOD! IT SMELLS SO GOOD IN HERE!
i got a driver’s lisence
got my passport
my mobile phone
got a laptop, digital camera
and 200 hundred books
too many clothes to wear all at one time
but not a kelly-green button-down like i wanted today..
8 pairs of boots
and a hankerin’ for a home…
“welcome back boy, settle in and stay a while”
i went to the Bank today and set up a
Saving’s account
a Secure Credit Card (to build my credit coz i never have before…)
and a Checking account
(so i can use paypal… a lot of people i’ve seen lately have this “donate” button… what a great idea! sometimes people hand me cash out of ability and appreciation anyway… now it can be done so randomnly on line, eh?)
now i can buy things
now i’m a full grown man
i don’t need to borrow your phone
or your credit card number
or your computer
or your shoes
i’m responsible for what i do
and i’m making a future for myself
putting something away…
(freedom?)
i’m giving myself til the Equinox to decide if i’m going to buckle down and get an apartment and be stationary in my own place for a few years
or head out of this country to tackle my other desires
any votes?
i was gathering wood outside
found an entire tree that had been cut down
cut into thirds
so
big pieces
in decending order…
the largest gouged my hand
made a long rip across the palm towards the wrist
i winced through it
and carried up the hill
handing it up to Leo on the upper poarch
so we could burn it all night for the solstice.
then the blood started oozing out
i went to the kitchen and washed my hand thoroughly with Dr Bronner’s Lavender Soap
and then held it out from me
not touching anything
and hardly moving my hand
for about 4 hours
( i took a nap )
i haven’t washed my hand or got it wet or used it vigoursly since then
it’s been about three days now
i still have a dark line of clotted blood across my palm
i will wash it tomorrow
– it’s healed
and now i launch into a lengthy diatribe of my thoughts on disease and hygene
i’ve not been sleeping well (with Leo) for the last few weeks
it’s been getting progresively worse
i broke the french-press i use to make my complex herbal teas in
Leo got me a replacement last time we were in SF (last week)
we stayed up all of the solstice night (kinda)
as i did the night before
so i was totally sleep deprived
and made a tea to help me sleep really well
but there were things in it also to nourish my nerves
and, though restful, often enlightens dreams (mugwort)
we went to sleep shortly after 11 last night
(after watching episodes 1&2 of “Tales of the City”)
and i woke only hours later with the candels still burning
i surfaced from a dream i don’t now remember
thinking i’d never get back to sleep
and when i did
it wasn’t the most restful sleep
but very vivid:
have you ever been to China?
when i stayed there in 2001
the place we stayed (not exactly a Hotel… a Hou-tong House..)
had a little resturant area
where there were four glass vats
filled with grain alcohol
eatch containing a different blent of
roots
herbs
lizards
bats
horns
claws
i drank a few.
in my dream i was travelling
not only through location
but time
and gender
and beings.
i remember at one point in London (i think)
(no, it wasn’t… i was New york, yes… Brooklyn)
i had been walking all day
as if i were terminally lost
through a building complex
where they sold wonderful little breakfast burritos…
YES
before this i was at a family reunion
i had no energy
there was a dance
my brother was there
he played some polish music i had made copies of
then he had lost the original
i wanted copies again
as i had also lost my copies
but he had a back up i had made
this polish music
music of our family?
music of the owls?
a large man
it was a roller skating rink
i was sleeping on a couch
he had picked me up like a baby
he had thrown me over his shoulder
i was so weak
didn’t remember any of this
when i woke up
my brother..
i figured i wasn’t doing too well
— where is my “love interest”?
not OK
go for a walk
through brooklyn?
where i am
somewhere familiar
there is that old building down there
where the mexican resturant is…
to get a burrito!
but i feel i need something to heal myslf first
i ask for Jamica (hibiscus tea — lots of vitamin C)
there is a trouble with the order
i give them a $20
and they take forever to get me my change…
when it finally comes
it’s all in british pounds and pence
infuriated
i try to talk with them
— they don’t understand english
there is a seperate man, a cashier man at the end of the counter
he explains that the last man who came through was british and requested his change like that
— they women must have just made a mistake
he says he’d be happy to convert the money back to Dollars, but we have to go to a british bank..
so we walk out the back alley
and we’re in London
grimy streets, dark and grey
he walks into the bank
and i wait on the street
when we’re out
we walk back to the complex
and he stands in the Lobby
(large ciruitous rooms snaking back… extensive lobby, converence rooms..)
says
“isn’t this a nice room…?”
it throws me into a reverie of the last time i was here…
having sex with my friend Harry Hawk on one of the couches…
i get lost in memory and start wandering past all the chairs and couches
elaborate velvetine, victorian, bright colours, chandeleers
somewhere in the back
i see a man
and there he is, It’s Harry
but there’s something different about him
he’s in a short-sleeved robe
open
naked
i nod at him and smile
he looks a little nervous
glances off the to side
i see a boy on the couch in the back…
‘ hi harry ‘
we hug
and it feels so good
he explains to me that his boyfriend is all pissy
they’ve been travelling and they just stopped through here
obviously i want to have sex with him
and it doesn’t take him long til he’s hard
in a deserted corner in the dapppled sunlight
and i say
‘ oh, that’s what’s different about you… when did you turn black? ‘
his skin is a very dark chocolate, totally smooth
(where, in reality, he is a short jewish man that is very furry)
” oh, my boyfriend had to go black for a shoot, so i took the meds with him… i’d not been black in a long time, thought it’d be fun for a while again… shaved my hair to make it more convincing ”
he’s hard now
we start playing around
and the room starts filling with people
business people
harry goes off
i sit down on a couch
lay down
start sleeping again
when i wake
i’m outside in a public square
trash and leaves blowing around
large, like the tuirellies
i’m really hungry
i go walking through the city (where?)
til i’m along a high-way through the middle of town
over to a place clearly marked as a health-food place
… long line
large glass-protected counters
you have to ask staff for everything
when i get to the window
i’ve noticed there is a large vat of liquid filled with black olives
and other things i cannot see
but it’s obvious one is only meant to drink the liquid…
so i ask if i can have 2 ounces of that
and some of those coconuts
and i point at various other things
and the man just looks at me and walks away
i wait
i wait a while
til i decide to ask someone else
he looks at me like i’m stupid
and walks off again
so i walk to the other end of the counter
and my child-hood friend Daniel is there
(he is the boy who introduced me to Ab-Fab and Pet Shop Boys and Morrissey, etc… he always pretended he was straight)
i ask him if he’s gay yet
he is bashful and says
” i’m working on it ”
and realize this nice boy i know over the counter is his love interest
and he waits on me
i ask him to juice those coconuts
and could i have 2 ounces of that liquid?
he says you’re supposed to drink the whole vat
‘ oh ‘
a few other things
but i leave the store without anything
still hungry
and now lost in a rather residential neighbourhood
with some goth/punk kids i know
we find a bag discarded on a corner
like an army surplus bag
i go digging through it
and find three bags
small belt-type-bags
one is empty
i decide to take it
then the other two:
one has binoculars
and that could come in handy too…
the other has a gun
but the type of gun that comes in pieces that you have to screw together
(like WW2)
i tell them this is the best kind of gun to have because it is un-traceable.
now i’m back in the hotel lobby
and i’m a vampire
and i’ve been living 3000 years
or forever
i’m a wolfboy
i’m fighting with this girl
we are chasing eachother
flying over things
changing shape
it is a struggle
well choreographed
we are well matched
and i lose her in a hallway
go walking through an abandoned area
to open a closet where i might sleep to re-gain my strength
and a stake flies out at me and pierces my heart
i’m going to die
and i remember that this doesn’t need to happen
i’m just weak
if i pulled myself together
i go through the entirety of time and collapse it
pulling anyone i’ve ever been, all the fragments of myself in the now
pulling them into my present being
old vieneese composer, black girl …
to many people to make sense of
now i’m must stronger
and operating outside of gender and time
i find this person i was fighting before
now i’m holding small metal sticks that can transform into various weapons
but our battle is one of words and intentions
i decide, this time, to let her escape
the scene plays over and over and over with different endings
there is a carousel
i am on the outside, watching it pass:
a closed metal room filled with naked people
a park with small dead shrubs; people sitting on benches
an old ruins with arches and crumbling brick
…
i’m on the carosel now
in every room
in every station
it spins larger than anyone can feel
i’m in the park
an old man
the battle consists now of surviving time
looking out at the world spinning by..
i woke with Leo bumbling up the stairs
handing me to phone
with the lady from the passport office
explaing the deal with my passport:
good til 2013
… if we are.
recently
someone told me he’s not interested in reading my journal
unless it has more FACTS in it
where i was, when, what i was doing
that i what i started doing with this journal
but i have degenerated into my old schtick of just writing about my thoughts and feelings
so
i’ll try and give the Facts somewhat regularly..
Leo bought me a year of paid membership on Live Journal for a gift!
i was going to do it myself, but he gave it to me, yeah!
in the last week
i watched
“Chappaqua”
“Devil’s Playground”
“Pink Flamingos”
“Female Trouble”
“the works of Michel Gondry”
“the Order” by Mathew Barney
finished reading two books
“Further Tales of the City”
and
“Roger’s Recovery from AIDS”
bought some CD’s on line as gifts from my mother
“Woven: 8-bit monk”
“the Kings of Conveinience: Riot on an Empty Street”
“Badly Drawn Boy: One plus One equals One”
“Rufus Wainwright: Want 2”
i ate a whole round of fig PanForte with kefir over the week in fort bragg for breakfast every morning
ate heavy meals of Lamb and beef and crab and shark with Leo every night
walked in the sand dunes with Stephen
and saw the last remaining Fen in california
(that is, small freshwater lakes near the sea shore… the rest have all been bulldozed in for Society)
stayed up all night the last night of mercury retrograde
to try and call old friends in Europe
(only left messages)
and then sorted through most of my old pictures in preparation for making a new picture web page for myself
created a small one for Eli
http://pics.elirarey.com/
(his page isn’t up yet, so i created this out of experimentation)
and then stayed up all night last night
for the winter solstice
staring at the fire
looking through tarot cards, i ching, leo’s face, myself
slept all day
started writing.
Domesticity at home.
i finished reading William Gibson’s “Neuromancer” last week
and…
it was a great read
great story
unlike, say “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson (who was probably very inspired by Gibson’s writing), it did not carry the weight of the world on its shoulders…
not even in the plot… ostensibly.
( i suppose it did… in its subtle way… i have to read more of his work, now, to understand just how… coz only in the end did it feel like it had the potential to…)
part of what i loved best was how most of the Human characters in the story were so flawed and very OUT OF IT
not on top of it
very confused and fallen and …
Human.
very Human.
however
one of the Non Human characters was half of the Personality of the AI that was trying to unify and break free… the namesake of the book
encrypted with much more meaning than “we” could ever fathom
he had locked the main human character, Case, in his realm of stored memories… personalities…
and explained to him that he could create this realm from people’s minds…
when Case said “but i don’t remember all this stuff to such great detail… how do you do it?”
the computer replied (something like)
“every human does– Memory is Holographic… but it is only great artists that know how to access it”
this interraction seems to be what resonated most with me from the Novel.
i’ve been obsessed with memory most of my life.
how i could remember the clearest of details from a novel that i read after or before my brother
and he was shocked
as he only rememberd the curves and shapes…
how i could remember the lyrics to “3000 pop songs”
how people, even now, are astounded by the details i remember
yet
most my childhood is grey and cloudy
near non-existant.
When i started reading John Crowley’s works back in ’99
i was entroduced to “the Art of Memory”
and learned more about it 2002 when i was staying in Italy on an olive farm
not able to converse with anyone, for i knew no italian and they knew no english (i cooked food for them instead)
and read Crowley’s “Ægypt”
which featured the man “Giordano Bruno”
burned at the Campo Fioro (and i was staying at a place called “campo fiorito”
after being caught by the Inquisition
he was the most famed in The Art of Memory
as taught by the Dominican order
(who probably got it from the greeks)
i feel i must find my way into my memories before i can step into my rightful place of power
(Maupin’s “Further Tales of the City”, finished last night, brought me back into the phrase “Those who do not remember the past are condemed to repeat it” through the ravenous ravings of Jim Jones)
and it bothers me to no end that most of my childhood is a could
(though, i must admit, certain land-marks stick out… like crags in the sea of dreams)
Reading Delany’s biography further frustrates me…
the deatails from his childhood he is able to conjur up
(he makes his own references to Wizard’s and their apprentances)
how can i use my imagination so beautifuly
if i cannot even use my memory with such grace?
i must set about finding these landmarks
latching onto them
and clinging to them
as bouys in the deep sea
to prevent myself from drowning
and further desolation
i will have to create the island that will turn these floating towers into trees in a place yet alive again.
Struggle
and fear
scary undertaking
(there must be a reason i’m hiding from myself)
Recent Comments