Nonce prayer

Nonce prayer 

A tree fell in the graveyard to lay 

among the resting. 

A man on his wharf, axing the ice

into the bay.  

A boat beat at the mooring to say, 

go on, let him run.

One day I will have a son

and I believe that is more important 

than boughs lain over the stones. 

Fourth sunday of ordinary time

Fourth sunday of ordinary time

I changed my mind I don’t want 
to be                                                          a dog again 

No rocks no 
ditches 
no bushes
Not the practice nor the postbox 

Perhaps I may be sheltered I could 
I could lay soft 
And lay low
singing into it I could 

On Monday I will 
pasture and couch the flocks with none to disturb them.

 

Fresnel Lens

My eyes set behind my eyes set above the 

nose – watched me draw a bull

Scab the scalp the skull Hitting 

the corners, want to see the calves

the colts 

Thank you for Easter, for 

Paul, the 

pocked drive and 

also,  

The keeper 

out 

at the lighthouse, heard

piping from the 

gulls, the gannets 

the gadfly Knocking 

into the tide the

hobbled pegs the rendered

fat and what now 

remains kept 

on the eastern sill

Anita

Last summer Anita heard impossible anomalous radio pulses, not from outer space, where Anita was meant to listen, but from below the ice. Anita was built to track neutrinos; you have a billion neutrinos passing through your thumbnail at any moment. Neutrinos detected by Anita must travel to Antarctica without interacting with anything else. Anita could be detecting a neutrino coming from the edge of the observable Universe. There are new, unknown types of particles or processes in the universe. Could be tau leptons, which emerge from the Earth and decay into atmospheric showers that could generate detectable radio waves. This theory is unlikely. In science, finding nothing often means finding something.

stratostat balloon

                  Anita

I've recently been fascinated with Antarctic infrastructure. There is something poetic about it, indescribably so. 

I always think about god even though I’m not religious and maybe it’s because I’m baptized

I was like a pillar.
I sat in the church pew and marveled at the order, did people take the pens the pencils home sometimes? Did someone have to come and replace all the little pencils and branded pens every day? Who made the pens? Who put the little sticker on them with the Presbyterian name? Everyone’s ears were glowing. The light was showing me their ear veins and earring holes, their folds folds. I stood in another church before this, Catholic, and listened to a singing song come out of little speakers in the lobby. I looked sort of shifty, my face poking through the warped yellow glass, trying to find the man who was singing, the organ that was playing. There were people standing facing forwards and the front was empty. No man, empty organ, empty organs. A woman approached the other side of the glass from me, gestured to come in. I shook tight smiled. There was a line of people out into the lobby, a man in the line was singing along to the hymn, was this him? Was he micd up and pumped through the speaker? His voice was lower than the disembodied song, he was waiting in line for the confessional. It was Saturday night, I drank hard fast in the park and watched people making out on the long bench next to me. I cried on the empty bus, my $2 confessional, and thought: can the autonomous vehicle out there to my left watch me crying? If alone and crying inside an autonomous vehicle, is it like church? Is the vehicle like priest? Like disembodied song on the speaker? The bus driver is closer to god than any of this. 

Old year moby dick

 I couldn’t find it, in sleep or wool or the winter water. I shrugged down my pants and stuff under the striped towel, feeling vulgar on that windy strip. Two figures, the man in his neoprene anzug and long fins and camera with the bright light, flashing in the peripheral, I keep glancing over to check for a star or headlights. Both would be catastrophic down on the cliff faced beach. The horse, both monocoular and binocular, blind in the front and back. I remember walking the narrow road, twice, once the lagoon was emptied and the small motor boats sat with their bellies pushed up in the mud. The fish and gun club. One time with my parents, the first or second, the empty lagoon or the filled, one time with an ex boyfriend, we looked at glass shards and rocks on the beach. I would like to be able to say: I regret explaining that my brain is a giant glass orb, filtering, jellyfish. I am rarely angry. Watched dogs swim and the gulls, oh the gulls. I change under the towel, naked naked naked. That’s what I imagine people see as they walk by me, let’s pants her! No swell, but wind, and yet, water still, still. But wind, still. Yet still the water. The wind, warm, tossing the sea grass and weeds in tornadoes, as if there were a storm coming. There is no storm coming, the water is still. I run my feet over the ridges beneath the surface, watch the plain-backed expanse of sand muddied by my movement. Muddied by movement, the second figure: a seal in the small waves that push in now and again. At first I thought: a neoprene man swimming face down, but then: face down too long ∴ a seal. As I go out further, I find a steady conviction that a tsunami is coming, the water pulled back like this, still, and yet, the wind. I turn my back to the horizon and look at the shore, these people will die with me in the tsunami. This couple is obstructing my view, they walk 5 feet (a short distance moved along a long stretch) and then embrace. They hug they kiss, touch each others faces, each others hair, are they breaking up? I can’t imagine this display being for any other reason. I peer. There’s a man wearing all black with his dog, who is brav, sehr brav. Brav like obedient, not like tapfer. Tapfer like brave, not like tapier. There is a family taking photos together, I overheard them say they were from Delhi, “they don’t have beaches in Delhi.” There is a girl very happy laying on her towel, wearing socks, she is looking out. I wish I had on socks. I saw this tsunami simulator video online, very poorly animated, filmed from a phone held by poorly animated arms on the pixel beach. The voice in the video was real, layered with a big whoosing sound. The animated sim with a real man’s voice kept saying “oh fuck it’s a tsunami, oh fuck it’s a tusnami”. I go down into the shallow still water, the warm wind, the gulls. Water in my ears, bob my head to one side every couple of minutes, everyone thinks something's wrong. I walked to this canyon earlier and past signs “trail closed” with my field recorder with the fuzzy microphone wind shield. I was worrying that people in the houses up at the ridge would look down and think I was a girl in a hat in the canyon with a gun. I sat on the ground and watched a bee walk along the flood path, I tried to record bird sounds but just got a leaf blower and airplanes, I took an advil for my headache, it was all pretty depressing. I cried on the beach when my friends asked me about Something and they rubbed my back. I was wearing the hat so I could angle my face down and make a little fort between the brim and the towel, I looked up and made eye contact with an old teacher from highschool walking by. There isn't really anything good to say about Something, the teacher isn’t wearing a shirt. I tried to say something good at the bar the other night and later on someone said they wanted to put me in their pocket. That’s not what I intended, I felt angry in my bed, angry on the couch. Like Ahab, I don’t want Moby Dick to end. 

Pie chart

I’ve been feeling embarrassed of putting writing on here and telling people about it. Embarrassed isn't even the right word. Half is sort of like embarrassment, half is I want things unsaid.

The feeling is divided into discrete sections (pie chart) 

1. Writing is frequently bad, I write every day in little notebook or little iphone and most of it is bad. Most of what everyone writes is bad. Most of what I've put on this blog is bad. All you can do is go forward continually and sometimes hit upon something glimmering.

2. Most of daily writing is personal. I don’t want to tell you about the days. Don’t care to let people know how long I shit for or what I did before bed. Mostly things are fiction, mostly I crawl into another brain when I write, secret brain.

3. I am occasionally surrounded by critics, terrifying. Cold cold cold.

4. Instead of sharing and then anxiously worrying about sharing, I prefer to watch YouTube or kill the ants in my room or order a drink or google bed bug symptoms.  

5. Oscillate between silence or compulsive internet share. Compulsion rules me.

This is embarrassing in and of itself. Being the goose is sort of a good feeling.