let december end

Chris Schad

a poet less known

"سپیده دم است

نشسته‌ام و مرگ را معماری می‌‌کنم"

 - بهرام اردبیلی

It's dawn

And I'm sitting here, architecting death

Bahram Ardebili -

death line

STATEMENT : sell your past, present, and future
PAYEE: institution
PRICE: too much
LENGTH: 800 words
DEADLINE: too soon

kissing walls

We have to get boxes.
I'm subconsciously avoiding anything that has to do with moving to the new apartment. Not because I don't want to, but because it's difficult to remove myself from the attic that saved my sanity. It gave my thoughts a warm roof, and my body a solitary bath tub to inspect my toes under the angular light prying through the window. The attic, carefully organized inside its many corners, witnessed loves and lovers --
some of whom I've forgotten, and it never judged me.

I've always been a sucker for spaces. Before we moved out of our first house (a two-story gem with a pond in the garden and rooms filled with memories), I spent days secretly kissing each and every wall. My 8-year-old self thought that maybe those kisses would help ease the house's pain of getting demolished.

But hell, I have to move on. I'm getting better at it year after year. Sometimes it scares me. But the world was made to change, to evolve, destroy, merge, divorce. As Dexter said, maybe we survive better in pairs. And maybe my attic was over-rated.

[moving revelations: n˚ 1]

pizza lovers

additional topping:

artichoke hearts

melancholic dips

sexy olives

a voluptuous crust

and oily texture

can you tell I'm hungry?

Robert Jessup - Falling Couple

a little invention that really matters:

folding

things are queer

Duane Michals (1973) 

utensils

Any poem I write that I'm remotely proud of, is first inscribed on paper with black inkpen or a pencil. After a number of scratches and arrows, I type the final draft for public exposure.
I outline my story ideas on A4 papers.
My planner is not digital.
I can only finish reading a newspaper from cover to cover if I'm holding it in my hands. (My major was newspaper reporting -- don't laugh). 

Not that you should care, but I've come across this a lot: many writers (not to call myself one just yet, but you know, for the purpose of this rant) tend to like it hard...I mean, in hard copy.
I'm just wondering if the next generation will/is getting used to the screen copy, and if that's a good thing.

Are words more lively if they can linger under your pen? Are they more sacred if there's the possibility of them getting stained rather than deleted and vanished?

I don't know. I'm not a romantic in this sense but as Zoozoo says, nostalgia is one of our biggest weaknesses.
(Or strengths?)

today

        William Daniels - William Blake II (2006)a

how do you nail a decision down?

picasso's elegant betrayal

word of the day

Pablo Picasso: Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto

fideism |ˈfēdāˌizəm|noun-
1 the doctrine that knowledge depends on faith or revelation.
2 exclusive reliance in religious matters upon faith, with consequent rejection of appeals to science or philosophy.


*this word of the day is brought to you by Rachel Taylor, the wonderful.

do you eat meat?

Mark Ryden 

monologue

She says it.

Pant,

she shuts her mouth,

bites her lips,

closes her eyes.

She said it.

note

If I buy you flowers and a tree and then put them on the table and then leave,
will you forever want me back and forth and on going metaphors?

If I bite the apple and water the tree will you hang me upside down and betray my wish:
I wish
I wish
I wish
I wish
I wish.

self reflection

curiosity is

Berlin- July 2010

essential

monthly period

Hey, December

I dare you

to beat

November.

bastard letters

Sliding between doors,
removing an afternoon dress to slip on something new,
they forgive to bow
and bullets pass through.

Letters are falling down from the mantle,
who cares to catch
another sunset?

We require your discretion,
yes we do.
Just like mint leaves through your eyes
shut and wild and jailed underneath your
lashes.

Like a toy drifting into a video game,
they succumb to another play but,
we need your discretion,
yes we do,
yes
we do.

N@ЯC!$$US

You were seen on our hidden camera! Click here to watch it: 

The gamut of spam/virus like e-mails have evolved though out the life of the Internet, in accordance with our measure of de-sensitivity toward them. First, they were almost consistently about porn and penis-enhancement products. They gradually became more attractive by giving away amazing, unheard-of deals with astronomical "chances to win" trips, products, cars, and in-your-pocket cash. Then they became more specific: "Lose the Holiday Pounds NOW!!!" "Buy the New iPod Before Everyone El$e!!!!!!!"

To avoid the delete button, many of them start with your name and a few personal words and lead-ups to the sp[c]am. Curiously, they offer you (dream) jobs – think of 2008-2009, at the height of recession, how many viruses wanted to hire you. And of course, you have the humanitarian ones, asking for money to cure a little golden-lock girl's cancer because she can't afford it. (Those scare me the most. What if they're real! [!!!!!!!])

It would be interesting to know which actually do get clicked on the most. I delete about 100 spams from my junk-box every few days. My brother has a word-filtering options that systematically gets rid of most of the rubbish.
Rubbish is by definition unwanted material that is thrown out. Spam is unwanted because really, porn is almost everywhere at hand, there are enough diets and books and Jenny Craigs and gyms and magical-potions to handle, and there are more effective/trustworthy ways to get travel deals or win the lottery.

But there is still something we need that is not as easily acquired: ourself. Fame. Image. Narcissism. And the market evolves...

You were seen on our hidden camera! Click here to watch it:

Go ahead. 

course of relations

I was speaking to my father yesterday, standing outside a vintage store in the cold to avoid the noisy interiors.

We were, as we usually do, catching up on a bunch of technicalities (do you have enough money? he asks. How is your health? I ask), as well as confessing our love and respect for each other. He was also telling me about his new iguana pet (Zoozoo), and how they were watching The Godfather II together the night before.

(1965) Iran

He then talked about his dear friend, Bijan Elahi, who recently passed away; A prolific poet, painter, essayist, translator, and one of the pioneers of the Iranian New Wave in literature. An article in BBC Persian described him as the “poet of silence,” alluding to his quiet last years in a tacit retaliation toward the suffocating atmosphere that was crippling artist and intellectual life in Iran.

My dad told me how when I was five-years-old and had a blazing fever, Bijan who was hanging out at our place and was curiously into mysticism and Sufism, prayed for me above my sickbed. I was touched by this story, until my dad laughed and said, “Well of course that didn’t help. It was a common fever and took its course.”

“At least I didn’t die!” I said. Maybe I would. Who knows?

(1964) From right: Bijan Elahi, Ahmadreza Ahmadi, Noory Ala

But I couldn’t help but feel sad. Even though I don’t remember this unique individual (he handed in a blank exam paper in his last year of highschool, protesting against the conservative and patriarchal education system), I felt like he had something to do with me. He had translated Nabokov, Lorca, Joyce, and Kafka, which I read and drenched in. He studied Picasso and taught a generation of writers and poets to disregard the form, the platform, the rules.

He wrote: “Poetry is chasing the truth through back alleys – such is the creed of relations. But it is only through the course of relations, that you can recognize the back alleys.”

I thought of all the great poets, painters, artists, writers, thinkers, directors, actors, singers, and teachers that were left imprisoned, dead, killed, or muted in a country that is known for its poetry.

And then I thought the best gift, the only thing I can offer to overcome this sudden, onerous nostalgia and longing for novelty and appreciation, is to work. Work, learn my past, and create. Create, and support those who do, and do.

When I hung up with my dad I thought, I should rent Godfather II tonight. And watch it with my own Zoozoo.