All Is Fatal

BACHELOR

2004-11-19T09:44:00.000-05:00

My life today is no different.
A flush of autumn, a whip of flame
against a green spray of tree,
hot and red, tells that story.

That my life has always been my own
can be seen in the way that plastic bag
clutches tattered to a chained fence,
makes a sharp panicked flap
as the wind bears down on it.

I walk alone, now, when an
October chill engulfs me and lifts
my body out of the subway steps,
bracing the exposed skin around
my wrists, my neck; my face is hot.

When I sit at a desk, in front of
a soft computer screen, cramming
time and money into my head-
ingredients I sift through, and mix,
and knead–I do it with a sureness
that is only told by the bodies of
those who have nowhere to be later,
accountable to no one; will it be a drink?
solo or with friends? or will it be to the gym?
and then home to eat? to watch? to rest?

So it is not you, when my stomach
grips a knot of agate, and my shoulders
clench like iron rods across my back,
and when my face hangs stoic, in thought,
as I sit on the train waiting for my stop,
and I take these steps not knowing
where they lead or why they are:
It is not you–
you boy, you man–
when you extend a finger and press
gently into that deepest bruise, and
around the flat-headed tip swells
a pool of dark fluid, like blood–
it isn’t you who causes that wound
to yield its store of pain to the night.

It is no one else. It is darkness.
I regret, it is all me.

The cold damp air will tell you that,
as it stiffens the sheets on my bed
and makes sleeping and waking
unbearable chores that will still be done.

The coffee I make in the morning
says as much, when I pour the warm
drink into a single mug and carry it
past my sleeping roommate’s bed
across cracking floorboards.

And my jacket will always make it clear,
when I pull it closed around my chest,
cell phone pressing my heart from the
inside pocket, plodding up some street:

That young man lives alone.

First Fall Morning

2004-10-17T09:31:00.000-04:00

Cold sheets.
No person to hold.
No other body
to warm this bed.

Two Pig House

2004-09-29T07:23:00.000-04:00

I moved us
from friends
to lovers
carried us
over threshold
into dark,
your dead
father’s home

We made bad love
good intentioned
out of straw that
burns too fast,
or blows down

Reaction of the soul to an evening walk in search of pornography

2004-09-19T22:13:00.000-04:00

I contain no multitudes.
I am one body walking earth.
Everything is mine.
Everything affects me.
No part is at ease.

If there is one soul,
I am its shape.

All that I am not,
I see.
All that I am–
Oh, Pain!–
is hidden.

Empty Nest

2004-09-07T22:58:00.001-04:00

Gimme all those cocks back;
the ones I’d taken in with charity,
given them home and fed them,
tucked them in at night and left
the bedroom door open just a crack.

Bring me those children whom
I devoted my youth to raising;
only to watch them, one by one,
run away to play in other backyards,
forgetting where they came.

When Will I

2004-08-18T01:31:00.000-04:00

When will I stop blaming
my failed loves for failing?
I'll never share these days
with them again--good or bad.

That September my successes
were all composed in your apartment.
I walk by it now (some other
person's light on--you don't live there)
kicking lonesome goals up Greenwich.

Channeling

2004-08-11T23:50:00.000-04:00

When I was younger channels
would go off the air at night.
Parents away, my sister and I
to watch ourselves, zipped two
sleeping bags together and locked
all doors. We'd watch TV until we
fell asleep listening to it.

Tonight you ran through my head
like the cable in my room--times
have changed--and you never
go off the air. Not after two years.
There is always something on.
As I surfed the streets (I'm still
a cruiser!) I tuned in...

Only reruns.

For An Easter Sunday

2004-08-11T23:39:00.001-04:00

My niece is just another baby.
I must remember that.

I must remember that when I
scoop up an entire moment with
my hand and lay it in front
of my sister, and ask my sister
to weigh every word against
the wriggling baby in her arms.

My niece is another baby;
and I love her unfairly, yes,
with the whole world's weight.

I, Hipster: A Target Revelation

2004-07-21T10:48:00.000-04:00

I recently had the pleasure of attending the sneak-preview opening of Target at the new Atlantic Avenue Terminal in Brooklyn.

The Mob

The draw of the event was two fold. First, Sandra Bernhard was going to be there, performing. Second, being from the West Coast, where Targets abound like freckles on a red-head, I came to depend on Target, not only for delightful home shopping and decently designed mass couture, but for serenity of mind.

I recall many a time my friend Kat and I would drive up to a Target, walk in to the AC and the instantaneous smell of fresh popcorn, purchase a slurpee, and just wander the vanishing aisles that held a plethora of brightly colored items, towels, gift cards, shoes, picture frames; oh, anything one could possibly find a personal delight in. This was our ritual. It wasn't necessary to purchase anything. It was simply the atmospheric experience of a giant, semi-stylish and ultimately affordable warehouse of modern goods. And with the popcorn, it was like being at a movie, except you were in the movie, and the movie was about you, and your life, and shopping.

Sentimental? Yes. But Target has functioned at many crucial points in my life. When I "came out", as they say, Target was a place for meditative conversation with friends and family. My sister and I bonded last summer on a trip to Target. We had had some pretty serious fights leading up to this visit, and a simple afternoon meandering the flourescent lighted aisles seemed to make everything okay. Then there were the seven cold weeks I spent up in Saratoga Springs at an artist colony, where a few trips to Target not only gave my mind a rest from the intensive struggles of writing, but also garnered for me a matching scarf and hat set I use to this day.

So I had been anticipating the opening of a new Target (a la francaise) just three subway stops away from where I live.

The event itself turned out to be quite the soiree, with free beer, margaritas, hotdogs, popcorn and nachos. The Coney Island Circus Side Show performers were there, being their freakish selves, walking on swords, swallowing snakes and basically looking very pierced and tattooed.

Sandra whooped and hollered and sang a little, trying to muster the crowd into actually being excited about shopping. It was like some hidden commercial footage that the networks and the store never wanted to be released, complete with a battery of "F-words", accusations of the Target Team Members snorting lines of coke in the john, enough irony to make you wonder if they were even paying the giantess emcee for her appearance, and a repeated declaration by her that "Tonight, everything is free!", which, needless to say, turned out not to be true.

Then, as the evening progressed, I noticed an increasing amount of torn clothing in the milieu of Target shoppers. There I saw a trucker hat. There a pair of really tight pants. Then someone who looks like they're in costume but I could tell were not with the circus people or the Target staff. Then several rail thin model-looking girls with bifurcated hair. Hipsters!

In droves! How could this be? I guess it's a little kitchy to be into cheesy American mass production, you know, to be cool enough to shop at Target, to be cool enough to by a frappucino and not worry about the political implications, to not be afraid to indulge in American consumerism. But I didn't realize that the hipster crowd would actually have a vested interest in a Target opening. Moreover, it looked as if some of the hipsters were in cahoots with some of the Target Team Members. My guess is that the marketing folks at Target knew the internet-savvy hipsters would pick up on the party and spread the word around. An appearance by DJ Paul Sevigny and some local band (I'm assuming, I didn't even get their name) must have raised interest for the hipsters, as they didn't seem too into Sandra, cooly chatting and mingling in little, boney shouldered circles as the comedienne walked right up to them and passed them, neither really giving much credence to the other.

Now, I was recently (this very morning, in fact) accused of being a hipster by my roommate. She thinks because I'm gay that I'm almost a hipster by default. Whether or not this has any validity I'm not sure, but I have to say, I've been finding myself in numerous situations where I look around, and lo and behold!--I'm surrounded by hipsters! Wednesday nights at "The Phoenix" in the East Village. The opening of PS1's summer party series. Watching fireworks from a warehouse rooftop in Long Island City. On the G train going to visit a friend in Greenpoint. Now the opening of the new Target.

Could it be that I'm a hipster in hiding?

I don't think I fit in aesthetically into the hipster ideal. Particularly last night. I was wearing a billowy linen shirt with chest pleats, gray pants and black sandals. Not very edgy; no tears; no layers; no Keds or Converse. And so often I find myself rejecting the idea of "hipster"; the exclusive attitude they often posture; the fact that many are trust-fund kids with really nothing better to do and not much to work for; the word itself.

Yet at the same time, I often admire the boldness of dress. The freedom of expression, albeit a superficial one, though, as pointed out by my roommate, not any more superficial than any other group of people. And I do admire the idea of being in the center of what's cool. "Cool" is not a word I look down upon or shun. Even my own wardrobe is peppered with thrift store shirts, a pair of ankle-high zip-up cowboy boots, one pair of cut-off pants I did myself; some funky ties. Even some of my music collection could be considered hipsterish--Postal Service, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Cocteau Twins, Rufus Wainwright, Belle & Sebastian, Magnetic Fields, even Erykah Badu (the black chick white guys can get into), although this discounts the majority of what I own.

If I am a hipster by default, it is only because I came to New York to be an artist, and that is what I am doing; being an artist. I have to say again that I don't feel I fit in with the crowds I see and identify as hipsters, and I'm sure there are some hipsters that would categorically deny that I were even one tenth hipster, but if I keep finding myself brushing shoulders with these too cool cats, I might have to retire my linens for a more distressed denim.

Until then, I will continue to shop at Target, and to gravitate toward events that geniunely appeal to my personal and artistic interests. And if I have to risk affiliating with hipsters as a result of my tastes, I'm willing. And maybe even a little excited.

All My Cherry Orchards

2004-07-18T14:09:00.000-04:00

For months I have known of the plans. I read a full page spread about it in the New York Times; the rezoning of 4th Avenue in Brooklyn.

There is this part of my mind that stubbornly resists the idea; like when you slip and break your arm or hurt yourself seriously and the shock is so overwhelming you're stuck in a moment of disbelief, saying to yourself, "That couldn't have just happened." And, as time moves on, my mind continues to file away the piece of information in the same place; the "that won't really happen" place.

Why this resistance to progress? And I don't mean progress in any valuable sense. I simply mean the progression of things, of time, of one day following the next. Why does my mind always resist the passing of presentness?

Other things I have resisted:

-The successes of pop acts like the Spice Girls and Brittney Spears. I remember the times and places I saw each of the debut videos ("Wannabe", my college dorm room, late afternoon; "Hit Me Baby One More Time", the Mainplace Mall in Santa Ana, CA, Teen Girls section, early evening). In each instance I recall experiencing two thing simultaneously. First, that the group or person would be instantly a huge success. Second, absolute loathing for what I was seeing.

Is my resistance to them merely a resistance to change? Or is my disbelief rooted in a more aesthetic criticism of an idea, which leads me to dread the acceptance of the idea in question?

-The war in Iraq. Until I saw pictures of the Baghdad skyline aflame, I thoroughly resisted the fact that our country was invading Iraq, and maintained a disbelief that the Bush administration would follow through with an act that was categorically reproved by most of the world.

-The fact that When Harry Met Sally was filmed fifteen years ago. I found myself watching it the other day with my friend, S., and we were both aghast that the movie finally seemed to have relevence to our lives. Can fifteen years have passed? It is undeniable.

-I resists my aging at all turns.

-I resist that it is no longer an option for me to be an Olympic gymnast. I would have had to start much sooner. Alas, I am too old now.

-I resist realizing that my greatest loves have come and gone, and that the virgin love-interest is no longer possible, and that my virgin loves all turned out badly.

-I resist the taking over of countryside by housing developers. And they will come.

-I resist the popularity of American Idol and Spiderman 2 and most reality TV shows.

Now I resist that the rezoning plans will actually materialize.

I see the run down buildings around the corner from and along the street where I live. I have always derived a sense of pleasure in seeing them, gathering the feeling of living in a place that has been mostly forgotten, that is overlooked by the culture at large. I feel secure in a way. I feel some privacy here.

But soon, if the plans persist, which they will, inevitably, new buildings will rise, the architechture of which I'm sure I will mostly disapprove. New stores I will loathe passing but will probably shop in. And rent will no doubt rise with the rising buildings, and I will be forced to contend with that. Not for a while, I understand. The threat isn't immediate. But it's out there; it is pending; looming. I'd be stupid to keep thinking that these things won't come to pass.

And there is my Cherry Orchard, out the window now, quiet and dark. The ax hovers above the gray bark, mid-swing.

There is always this sense of having to wake up to the blow. And there it is; time has passed; futures are being planned by businesses, and we cannot avoid their futures; we who choose to live with results. For us, there will forever be the constant hacking of the blade against the bark.

First Words

2004-07-14T23:22:00.000-04:00

A general sense of confusion lingered into the morning, resulting in a fruitless and mostly unconscious trip to the launders, only to realize, when I arrived, that I had neither brought luandry to drop off, nor any to pick up.

What then?

2004-07-12T08:17:00.000-04:00

My hesitation about blogging has not to do with a fear of writing or of people reading what I write, nor is it about a worry of lack of opinions on my part, but rather, is generated from the inkling I get that The Blog, like so many fads, will soon pass into the vast and ever expanding void of infowaste; that these words, this profile, will soon be quiet, unused, their chief energy lost; that five years from now we'll all be looking back at how silly blogging was, which is perhaps the destiny of the mini-mowhawk and the big belt buckle. And with what already seems like a vastness of blogs out there--just out there--what incentive is there for anyone to read and be interested in this blog in particular? Perhaps, a stuffy but refreshingly correct and mindful use of English grammar and language might be one reason. (I'm really too young to be writing this way, and I don't intend to imply that my writing is without flaw. Please, if you see typos or question my use of punctuation or syntax, let me know.) Or, it is possible that the content here might be of recurrent interest to some individuals.

Which leads me to the begging question: What will be the content of this blog?

I hesistate to decide now. My first instinct is to keep a sex blog. No doubt this idea is not very original, and the thought of yet another chronical of coitus might have the appeal of a third or fourth piece of cheesecake, but within and among my friends, the happenings and exploits of my sexual being seem to be of particular interest, which gives me the idea that there is something objectively unique and satisfying about the events, situations and positions in which I frequently find myself. But whether or not I want to make it a habit of kiss-and-telling on the blind but light-fast canvas of the electronic universe is something I need to consider more deeply before commencing.

Otherwise, my only thought is to do as I am doing now; to wake up and sit down, on days that it appeals to me, and write; without trying to write a play or a novel or a short story; without forcing continuity onto a series of events, which though occuring chronologically, seem to bear but a veil of continuity between them. To do this, and let it exist for itself, if but for a few cosmic hours of interest before receding into the warehouse of "remember when".

Cherry Blog

2004-07-12T00:58:00.000-04:00

One more night. What do we come back to, after a whole day? A few words. A new blogger is born.