tracing watermarks:

that’s how i paint: my brush traces
the shape of ghosts at rest.

when i write, i listen for dictations
the ghosts whisper.

when i walk, it’s in tandem with
their rhythms.

when i create, they reveal themselves,
loud, full-fleshed – but only to me.

i wonder, why me, why can’t they
reveal themselves to others?

they say, “we’re dead, but we’re not gone.
we’re playing our part; now play yours,

and live.”

:
:

~A.

from out the X

neil young’s ’78 lyric, ‘it’s better to burn out than to fade away’,
was the signoff to kurt cobain’s final note (1994)

: : :

everyone you’d ever loved died young or left you once
they grew old. by the time you were three, you knew
you were different. you were surprised you made it
to your teens. and, still, you grew up and, just as
you’re falling into the well of middle age,
you see how you’re a messenger for the
living and dying. the thing is, you’re
too stubborn to die, and tense like
a rope between a tug-of-war of
millennials versus boomers.

you hate it when either
side whispers, “you
belong with us:
just us.”

: : :

i have seen the ends of lives too many times. i have seen,
and experienced, the greatest loves falling so far down
their cries fade to lucky whispers: and so, despite
all my abilities, i’m too afraid to give myself to
anyone: i hate desiring to care, dreading how
i barely know how.

i don’t want to be in love again. today, i only have the
energy to let go, not hold. and yet i have no power
over feelings – i hate myself because they are
my own, and undeniable, i hate how much
i adore words that fail to tumble out my
mouth when i think of you. and i’m

sorry for all the bad things
you’ve not yet seen: i empathize,
i mourn with you: and it hurts to drop
platitudes like ‘one day at a time’. and all
i can tell you is, there’s a payoff to hanging on:
there must be: we’re too defiant to not believe that.

:
:

~A.

the recital child

it’s like bliss was surgically removed from your heart.
there’s a sting of envy only old people waste over.

you awaken one day, not knowing what you’ve been,
recalling a piece of you that’s not yet sedated.

you mastered many notes. you
never learned real music.
* * *

he likes the sound of music; they think, let him
take lessons. they pick his pieces. and when
he’s ready they push him out on cue, have him
perform tricks. the grownups applaud, thinking,
such a gifted kid; they prattle about his parents’
damn-goodness: they raised that little piece of ass.
* * *

ms. H: reaganomics’
oriental doll: mother-saint
for tweens mucking through
the greed decade:

she’s academic with british pedigree. she
speaks seductive accents – mandarin by way
of singapore. she’s connie chung’s milf cousin,
a skillful grubber, prideful and offfensive.

hour-and-fifteen sessions, a hundred bucks and up.
the first half-hour is her bullshit – clear, how much she
hates her job. her mask is sublimely expert: her fake
enthusiasm, the way she gossips about the news,

her day, whomever’s peeving her. a look
at her clock, he wonders, with polite silence,
when’ll we start scales and drills? he wonders,
but relents: he likes stealing peeks at her legs,

her porcelain cleavage under her blouse. he
nearly pops one when she lays her palm on
his knee. and he loves when she leans close,
fancying her taste slathering his mouth,

her perfume hissing into his sinuses. you know,
whatever. then the lesson starts: his fingers strain,
cramped like every week; he sits stolidly with the
sound of her pencil scribbling notes on score sheets.

* * *

1)
play fur elise. play zwei sonatinen. play ice castles.
play memory from cats. play that version of the
cavatina (theme from the deer hunter). play that one,
the one that goes, rye-rye rah-run, rye-rye, rah-run.

you’re playing too fast. too soft. what notes, and how?
goddamn, don’t you reason out. don’t lie. now, practice:
everyday, every fucking day. now, play. oh, c’mon.
play the pianono, sonny bono [smile].

2)
what else are you good at? you’re not that smart.
you suck at sports. you fail this and you’re just
another fag. fine, be a bum. okay? okay, then:

if i didn’t love you, i wouldn’t say all this.
you can’t even drive yet. so, listen: what
you are now, you’ll be forever: now,

choose.
* * *

another recital: this time, the
contemporary festival. he plays
robert starer’s “shades of blue”.
he pushes stageward, his face a
red flush. afterward, the judge’s notes
read: “enjoyed it, but the tone was

far from blue.” and so the show ends there.
if he’s got any soul left, everything’s not so
over; by college, maybe, he’ll steal time to
figure if he’s any buried talents. he’s learned
lots about notation: if he’s lucky he might
yet write musically.

:
:

~A.

xennial blue

in the 60s, there was the war, the movement,
the counterculture, the generation gap.

fifty years later, how have we evolved,
aside from technologically?

my old self still loves my younger self’s ideals:
maybe that will be the last part of me to die.

i am looked upon to open my mouth. my
thinking exhausts me – i say nothing

until something bad happens. i’m a
four-megabyte PC peering into a

vast electromagnetic storm, bright as the sun.
i learn what i learn, i learn more, and i ask,

‘is that all there is?’ …and this is the part of
the dream where i’m lost, my chest

throbbing with anxiety: i just know i have to
get home; i can’t decide what axis to try.

:
:

~A.

a twin sister’s ghost

and just when she was figuring herself out,
everyone who ever loved her fell away
from her life, like booster rockets for
a space shuttle. and just when she
figured out gravity, she was
knocked off-course, and
into an orbit no one’d
ever seen. “and then,
and then…” – this
is how she continues her story.
she does not believe in rewrites.
she listens, as if taking dictation
from the dark matter that keeps
her body in place: her ghost is
her pilot.

:
:

~A.

a monologue to a mirror

‘goodness does not grow old… those who have not practiced such disciplines pine away like old cranes in a lake without fish; like worn-out bows they lie in old age, sighing over the past.’ ~ buddha gotama
: : :

how to live isn’t always the same as
how to stay alive.

you don’t know, do you, what to
hope for or yearn after. but

you know the futility of beating yourself:
no beating can kill you.

you see how the best stories in your memory
are prophecies: it’s all real, isn’t it,

the ideals of speechless dystopias – killers and slaves
at it again, the world feeling its mortality.

you, maybe, want to do something about all that. but
you gotta figure out what to do with yourself first,

don’t you? step one: catch your breath, recite your prayers.
then get something to eat. then get out. then come

back. and keep moving to whatever you need to do right
now – one thought, one moment at a time. after

the most recent storm has left you,
look around & start again.

you’ll be okay.
be good.

:
:

~A.

higher ed / hired

1: long shadow of tenure

performance review

(look: don’t worry about what
i am, let me put this in a way
you’ll get.)

maintain a chronological personal
inventory file. publish palpable
research based upon your
primary niche.
individual essays and anthological editorship
are recommended, though individual books
are preferred. note
the following:
intersectional critical vocabularies for
said publications preferred;
said publications are best
indecipherable by the
general public;
theorize democracy while never
practicing nor believing in it.
your community, in actual,
is everything below you.

(see? make ’em think only you can do what
you do, just be clever with your hands.
kinda like a hedge fund manager.)

: : :

2: junior status (tier two, year five)

the grind: ingrateful tuned-out brats abound.
the dilemma: propagate freedom of thought.
the stink: baiting and switching with dogmatism.

you hate elitism with your sheer soul;
you ignore how you benefit from it.
your rude conscience repeats ‘you didn’t sign up for this’ when

your morning alarm goes off.
you hang on until 5 p.m., or maybe
you stretch ‘til 7, when it’s time

to beeline
to the parking lot and zoom home
to crash over TV, a drink, and cellphone chatter. . .

assess.
prep.
repeat.

: : :

3: the full-time part-timer’s blues

i have a tier-one graduate degree.
my name’s no stranger to print.

i have more efficient pedagogical
sense than some textbook.

now, please pay me my monthly
2.5 grand, don’t drop me below
minimum wage, and let me
keep my freedom. don’t

let me live off eating octopus
three times a day.

your bitterness is no bother: you can
hate me, but don’t disrespect me.

:
:

~A.

hibernation in summer

‘l’ours est un animal solitaire, qui s’adapte à tout climat,
tout environnement, toute nourriture. en groupe,
ils partagent la nourriture quand il y en a assez,
malgré leur peu de contacts sociaux. l’ours
est un formidable adversaire, sans aucun
instinct prédateur. mais, surpris ou
blessé, il peut attaquer et il
devient dangereux.’

(big, quiet, curious, careful, aloof:
in single words, a memory of
a dark, lumbering thing
looking for food or a
place to sit.

it would attack no men. it is calmed
by the notes of rain, wave crashes.
it would counterattack, though,
whatever tries to act bigger,
likely killing.)

“the bear is a solitary animal, adapting to any
climate, environment, or food. in groups,
they share food when there is enough,
despite their lack of social contacts.
the bear is a formidable opponent,
without any predatory instinct.
but, when surprised or hurt,
they become dangerous.”**

:
:

*french dialogue from “ghost dog: the way of the samurai” (dir. jim jarmusch, 1999)
**adaptation by the poet, with a little help from google translate

~A.