a dying man's wish

and all i can subsequently do is rotate between bouts of sobbing and staring blankly out my second story window

i love you, h.
love of my heart.
peace of my soul.
joy of my life--
always.

while retreiving my copies of civil disobedience, bone deep in landscape, and the land of little rain because of a post and subsequent response at jann's place, i broke a nail very deeply on my right pointer finger. i swore quite loudly. finished pulling the books down from the shelf. stuck my finger in my mouth. bit down hard. and decided now that i hate trees and the environment and literary ecology. at least for the moment.

liquid diets (or—what else are thursdays for?)

do you ever get the impression that you’ve just got way too many thoughts fucking around in your head and that even the act of trying to capture them into sensible text for anyone else, or even you, to decipher might just be an impossible task? tonight i thought that i might have some kind of strange unidentifiable fascination with things that glow. the light through the trees on my walk home in the perma-dusk of evening above the 501 building. the faint hint from the soda machines reaching out the windows at me from the art department. the weird phosphorescent light i saw the other day when i turned my ankle on a crack in the pavement in my-too-high-for-long-periods-of-wear black leather boots. the way i feel when i think about saying i love you.

the thing is, surely—even uneasily
approx 9:20pm
i handle myself better in writing
i’m too afraid to plug in and turn on the desk lamp
hovering here
dead
for want of release
from its infernal low thought drowning buzz

[notes for another time]
approx. 6:35pm
walking to campus to meet a student for a late conference
i was stopped by the sound of two men repairing a
roof four stories up. the blue glow shouted out of the
blow-torch – like an inhuman growl permeating the
[realm of the [world below]]. The flames held me entranced
against the blue-black sky of the almost night. As the
men performed their crazy ritual dance – stamping
out the spinning (glorious) sparks.

approx 6:40pm
walking away from the university building. through the throng
and general din of students – i heard a woman’s voice
singing angie stone – probably to her headphones – maybe
a block or more away – her song—gorgeous—in my head
and it carried me where i was going long
after she was gone.

approx 6:45pm
*[after thought title]
the hard clang of my hand against the metal door
handle of the coffee house where I agreed to meet
you – sounded like the resounding idea that there are too many rings
here and not enough hands.
*[where it well]

latest hair color development: neon red

s. used to write me love letters from his seventh floor apartment. in a city in which i've never lived. a space i'd never seen. ghost occupied. imagined. he'd write in the most convoluted manner -- as if the sounds of the words meant more than the actual meaning did. but it was always a performance between us two. the way things looked and sounded mattered more than what things actually added up to be. because if you counted out all the important figures, the resultant zero left us both feeling awfully useless and dry. like eyes cried out for too many hours over something for which the relevance had already long been forgotten. we passed each other this way. the matching of words into sounds into thoughts that needed no other form. until we'd neglected the one true thing that mattered. the substance of it all. the realness of bodies held fast between sheets -- walking along streets -- eating fresh berries from a bowl with our hands. his words rendered him less real. the way his prose moved from endearing into fascination and then straight into an annoyance that i swept daily, weekly, monthly into the garbage bin -- like leftovers never intended to be eaten. how much do we create and consume one another? how real are any of us anymore?

my penance: the lack of soft words left only for me to devour

the buzzing of the door bell ring

earlier today the phone rang. the device that allows someone standing a floor down to request entry into the building. the man’s voice, unidentifiable, looking for sanchez. wrong number, my only offer before clicking the line closed. but in the afterward, i became convinced of some kind of significance to the thing that was most surely the mistake of bad directions – or transposition. sanchez, sanchez, my mind repeated in some kind of cacophonastic mockery. until i’d created some satisfyingly ridiculous scenario – of me involved in a kind of highly secretive surveillance – it’s a code word for something – something that if i had known in time might have unlocked the realm of the unknowable – might have delivered me from evil or saved me from some kind of nightmarish despair. the relevance of sanchez keeping me from my studies. from traveling to paris. letting my tea go all forgotten and cold in the mug on the bed side table.

in the first page notes section of my next year planner, I penciled in at 3:00 pm -- meet sanchez; an overnight bag; the key; 14159

written during a space of time in which i was supposed to be doing something else: yesterday or the day before, hurried and trying to pretend like i really was paying attention [unedited]

these trials, grab-dash attempts to capture your images – to share the secret that your existence performs on me – with the world. because i can’t be the only one who understands that you make the entirety of this life thick with the sweet heavy taste of hot black currant. the memory of you – sticky and suffocating – the liquid of a warm easy calm. you are my one singular perfect cup of earl grey and a fresh just-ripe orange at the end of each day. you are every last bite of unidentifiable pudding topped with that unmeasured salvation of crème fraiche.

editing papers consuming the undesirable

the televised images of a holocaust
or some other crime committed against one human body against another
or the real image of a naked body
held tight against the eyes
for consumption
hard fast palpitations in the mind
along the individual markings of a spine
raise the same questions about reality
about the realism that exists between the way palms press against flesh
a consumerism that delivers us all into a world of interpretation
of reconciling the imagined
deliverance into a space where we’d like to form a clear coherent
genuine
individual
perspective
if only someone would tell us what we should make of it

the secret revelation of my new new favorite thing [no, it's not you or you either]

marking 27 portfolios straight
might just make me more of the crazy
two, ticky ticky, bo, bo, zoo, too
now say: bag

caramel apple cider

6 hours, 17 collections

there are twelve unread messages in my inbox
an empty take-away cup that was at one time filled with coffee on my desk
i want all new socks

giving away old jeans

this is the skinniest i've ever seen you, she says, as we stand in my office. i lean against my desk, feel the sharp edge grate against the bones in my hip and enjoy the uncomfortableness of the conversation -- my posture.
even last year? i ask, without any clear vision of the way i've looked at any time of my life. i've given her a full bag of old pants that i've decided i don't or won't wear enough to merit keeping stuffed into my already overflowing closet. they're all several sizes too big for me, and i can't remember if they were always too large or if i've suddenly started to slim down.
you're really much skinnier, she says -- looking at me over the tops of her glasses -- her eyes thinned out by judgment, by her nature of asking too many questions.
i mumble something about eating, knowing full well i've done nothing but drink hot tea and coffee all day long. i wonder if i'll get to the gym later and if the trips to the bar that will happen later in the week will put a dent on my apparent change of shape.
i think i look the same, i manage to say out loud as i'm walking out of the office to stand in front of a room full of students -- after a few steps i hear her voice trailing after me -- but what do you see? she calls . . . what do you see. i look at my shoes as i run down the stairs -- now late to teach my own class -- and decide that my jeans will be tighter -- will fit just right after the next round in the dryer.

post-modern skirt lengths

today i have a very important meeting.
i've intentionally worn my glasses, so that there will be at least some layer to hide behind -- to distance myself from the faces that will reside on the other side of the table.
i'm wearing my favorite dress. the black one that hangs just right -- just below the knees -- that has the blue stitching in stripes that matches the blue stripe in my hair. listening to all the r.e.m. i've got -- for inspiration -- for solace.

action

sometimes only the clearest thoughts come from the most muddled moments. when you've spent all of the money you didn't have on new lingerie and you know that what you're going to do is get into bed after too many drinks, drunk and ostensibly alone. when you can't shake that unsteady feeling that what you thought wasn't at all grounded in reality. it's these moments that create the most doubt. that make you take your head and shake -- if it weren't for the cold hard quantities of alcohol and lack of sleep rendering you incapable of any quick movement. erasing the whole elaborate mirage that imagines you as imogen at all. because what is that, anyway? almost the same as simply an image at all. a rendering in the mind of what might almost be real if ever you believed in it. but it's the believing that seems most problematic. it's the tangibility of the thing that seems, as the days pass by, to be the most telling -- that seems to be the most possible thread of evidence to attest to the mirage at which we met and will forever remain.

a thought. threadbare and now ridiculous in the consequence of fruition.
i will always ever remain for you merely this.
words against a screen. faded images for which you no longer request or desire any more intent. and it seems fitting in some strange universe such as this to think that i should not ever have been anything more.
a fool, only, would have considered it otherwise.

yours and forever--

imogen.

things that sound right in the moment

i have heard the dry leaves
break and go like rain
on the dark cold asphalt street

what I mean to say, but often always never do

You’re the kind of person who understands the importance of connection. Of the consequence of even the slightest interchange. That even one look or a cherished embrace stolen fast between the other instances that drive this living of lives can change the entire perspective with which we view the world. And I see the people who have passed in and through and consequently out of your life all have this air of temporality. Faces in a photo album for which, even a few short years from now, you’ll not at any stretch of memory or time be able to render them into reality with names or instances in which you’ve shared something memorable – striking. What I refuse to become is one of the faceless numberless generations of lives with which you have seen from and grown in without any more than a short nod to the complex nature of what makes up memory. You’ve left your impression on me. The way in which I touch. Hold. Listen. These acts – irreparably changed and forever catapulting forward. In great consequence of you I have this voice. I have a name. I have the recognition that there is a consequence in the development of emotional endeavors – at all.

when i don't feel well

i usually head for the library
get lost in a maze of words and time
stand for too long looking through books printed only in german
walk home balancing large stacks of poetry

what i want to do right now

throw open the windows, crawl between the thick heavy sheets, and dream about the way you make colors seem brighter -- even with my eyes closed

192

at some point you've got to just turn it all off
at whatever cost
and say
forget it for now
forget it for however long this lasts

relations

after a quick scan of dvd's moblog, i wonder . . .
could winks and my slippers be related?

: P

more silly pictures here
slippers
misfire one
misfire two

on being the american and other unenlightened details

is it sad that what i've eaten today totals a handful of (deceptively caloric) fig newtons, a few teas, and a coffee and that i fully plan to finish it all off with a couple (how many?) of glasses of wine in 3 hours and counting?

is it sad that the most exciting thing i've talked about with the person i love in the past week's time had to do with coding issues and xml tags?

best word o' the day

lovetacularness