last post was too much
political talk no more
celebrate labor
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Ed....this means HAIKUS
This doesn't have a title. I'd take suggestions. I'd take any feedback; I just wrote it at work, not wanting to work.
Tell me I'm not beautiful because you don't understand, that when he crushed his fist against my jaw and the socket popped and the bones broke, the angels sang and the rain stopped, I fell to my knees and fell on my palms, and smiled a crooked, slack-jawed smile to the saving grace of hot summer tar on the hot summer street because in falling, I felt.
In 12-18 month intervals he was a number in an unsuited uniform in a yard. During the first, I felt too much. After the second, the third, the forth, I felt nothing at all. The burns healed, the cuts healed, the fractured bones bonded. During the second, the third, the fourth, since no one else would, I ran my own fingers along the scars from my sternum to my breast, from my breast to my belly, across my belly, hip to hip, marking the space where only one grew and no more would grow.
No more. Not one.
No one but the creator would love such a mess, could let his hands graze the collection of scar tissue which became my home.
Welcome home.
12 months.
He created me and I am his. Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the trinity of Drop-out, Pusher and Corner Shop Lord.
Oh Lord.
Welcome home.
Create me anew, touch my soul. Through my jaw with your fist, through my chest with your steel, to inner chambers of my heart, the inner folds of my mind. Where you are sixteen and I am fifteen, and when I play-fight and push you, set my soles to run away, you set me on a stoop, align our eyes and say: Stop, for real; I just want to hold you.
Stop.
Then you left again, 12-18 months. I was stopped.
You came back and I hadn't moved and you had been moved, so there this life began. You held me. You made me. My nose, my jaw, my womb, my toes, my tongue, my teeth, my voice, my sound. Everything re-formed.
Today I repent, for wondering if it could have been any other way, wondering if me naked could now look any other way, my heart full could now beat any other way, if I could have been created, crafted and sculpted, painted and perfected by hand, any other hand.
Tell me I'm a pity because you don't follow. Tell me my shame because you don't see. Tell me I'm not beautiful, because you don't understand. Tell me I don't count because you don't comprehend. That you created him, with your hands. Lashed his back, tore his tongue, boxed his ears. Filled his mind with sediment which settled exactly as you planned. Don't shake your heads and your self-righteous fingers at me, I stopped and I stayed and I tried and I gave.
12 months. Welcome home.
Because at 8:02 on a Tuesday night a college boy put his hand up my 17-year-old skirt and at 8:02 he turned the college black and red of his soon-alma-mater, and at 8:03 he grabbed my wrist as yours were in cuffs and he pulled me away as you were driven away for 12 months.
12 months at 18 is like 9 months from conception, life taking form. 12 months at 17 is like 11 months from birth, sounds taking form.
I tell him he is beautiful, as my split lip drips drops of my hot bloody words on your porcelain hands, because I understand. I was made to understand: that you gave him no choice, so you gave me no chance. I understand.
Tell me I'm not beautiful because you don't understand, that when he crushed his fist against my jaw and the socket popped and the bones broke, the angels sang and the rain stopped, I fell to my knees and fell on my palms, and smiled a crooked, slack-jawed smile to the saving grace of hot summer tar on the hot summer street because in falling, I felt.
In 12-18 month intervals he was a number in an unsuited uniform in a yard. During the first, I felt too much. After the second, the third, the forth, I felt nothing at all. The burns healed, the cuts healed, the fractured bones bonded. During the second, the third, the fourth, since no one else would, I ran my own fingers along the scars from my sternum to my breast, from my breast to my belly, across my belly, hip to hip, marking the space where only one grew and no more would grow.
No more. Not one.
No one but the creator would love such a mess, could let his hands graze the collection of scar tissue which became my home.
Welcome home.
12 months.
He created me and I am his. Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the trinity of Drop-out, Pusher and Corner Shop Lord.
Oh Lord.
Welcome home.
Create me anew, touch my soul. Through my jaw with your fist, through my chest with your steel, to inner chambers of my heart, the inner folds of my mind. Where you are sixteen and I am fifteen, and when I play-fight and push you, set my soles to run away, you set me on a stoop, align our eyes and say: Stop, for real; I just want to hold you.
Stop.
Then you left again, 12-18 months. I was stopped.
You came back and I hadn't moved and you had been moved, so there this life began. You held me. You made me. My nose, my jaw, my womb, my toes, my tongue, my teeth, my voice, my sound. Everything re-formed.
Today I repent, for wondering if it could have been any other way, wondering if me naked could now look any other way, my heart full could now beat any other way, if I could have been created, crafted and sculpted, painted and perfected by hand, any other hand.
Tell me I'm a pity because you don't follow. Tell me my shame because you don't see. Tell me I'm not beautiful, because you don't understand. Tell me I don't count because you don't comprehend. That you created him, with your hands. Lashed his back, tore his tongue, boxed his ears. Filled his mind with sediment which settled exactly as you planned. Don't shake your heads and your self-righteous fingers at me, I stopped and I stayed and I tried and I gave.
12 months. Welcome home.
Because at 8:02 on a Tuesday night a college boy put his hand up my 17-year-old skirt and at 8:02 he turned the college black and red of his soon-alma-mater, and at 8:03 he grabbed my wrist as yours were in cuffs and he pulled me away as you were driven away for 12 months.
12 months at 18 is like 9 months from conception, life taking form. 12 months at 17 is like 11 months from birth, sounds taking form.
I tell him he is beautiful, as my split lip drips drops of my hot bloody words on your porcelain hands, because I understand. I was made to understand: that you gave him no choice, so you gave me no chance. I understand.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
The view from eight years
My goodness, Kate, how curious. I had no idea Christian Bale was an over-arching theme to my existence.
In 1992, I fell in love with the Newsies lead man because, you know, he could sing and dance. As a tiny little eight-year-old, I guess that equated to dreaminess. (Somehow at 24, playing high-tech dress up and destroying shit is now dreamy? Oh, oh, my apologies, it is his 'saving Gotham' and 'finding inner strength' that we gals just drool over, right?)
While everyone knows Batman holds the key to personal, social and moral revolutionary fortitude, it now occurs to me that Bale's 1992 character also struggled with his identity - calling himself Jack Kelly, a very constructed persona, vying for the West (aren't we all?? Goodness, it all just keeps circling, doesn't it? Um, down the drain?), and then getting arrested as the vagrant Francis Sullivan. And we ultimately love him because even once he seems to scab out, Jack comes around and saves the day leading his street boys against Pulitzer. Like Batman, his actions, those smooth late 19th century moves and sweet songs, make him who he is, not the name in front of him.
So, I'm a lawn-reader and a writer of poor prose and a walker and a yogi and a listener because those are some of the things I do. Mattering not what might motivate why I put myself in a 105 degree room with sweat running down my arms, the backs of my legs, the back of my neck when in dandayamana-janushirasana? Why my feet are my main mode of transportation? Why I pay such close attentions to the words spoken by others?
What else can Christian Bale teach us? I suppose a marathon movie-viewing is in order. Research. Education. And daydreaming, if we must.
In 1992, I fell in love with the Newsies lead man because, you know, he could sing and dance. As a tiny little eight-year-old, I guess that equated to dreaminess. (Somehow at 24, playing high-tech dress up and destroying shit is now dreamy? Oh, oh, my apologies, it is his 'saving Gotham' and 'finding inner strength' that we gals just drool over, right?)
While everyone knows Batman holds the key to personal, social and moral revolutionary fortitude, it now occurs to me that Bale's 1992 character also struggled with his identity - calling himself Jack Kelly, a very constructed persona, vying for the West (aren't we all?? Goodness, it all just keeps circling, doesn't it? Um, down the drain?), and then getting arrested as the vagrant Francis Sullivan. And we ultimately love him because even once he seems to scab out, Jack comes around and saves the day leading his street boys against Pulitzer. Like Batman, his actions, those smooth late 19th century moves and sweet songs, make him who he is, not the name in front of him.
So, I'm a lawn-reader and a writer of poor prose and a walker and a yogi and a listener because those are some of the things I do. Mattering not what might motivate why I put myself in a 105 degree room with sweat running down my arms, the backs of my legs, the back of my neck when in dandayamana-janushirasana? Why my feet are my main mode of transportation? Why I pay such close attentions to the words spoken by others?
What else can Christian Bale teach us? I suppose a marathon movie-viewing is in order. Research. Education. And daydreaming, if we must.
Mega-truths of the Masked
The far-reaching implications of this next post will resonate in ways you cannot possibly preclude. It is trifold in its intent.
The following paragraphs contain my attempt to: further theorize on the potential discrepency between our self-percieved versus outwardly-constructed identities, present an example to illustrate an aspect of self that was at one time revealed by our revered Christine about her own innerworkings, and, in a very concise way... (wait for it)... bring this little publication fuuuuullllllll circle.
My ambitions are endless,
and
I shall keep you in anticipation no longer.
You've seen Batman. You love Batman. No one you know is better equipped to grapple with the dark, complex intricacies of the individual psyche than Batman. Perhaps you all will recall the scene in Batman Begins when Bruce Wayne poignantly utters this: "It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me." Batman says so. (This is not up for discussion.) In accordance with my unwavering conviction that all truths come from the mouth of the caped crusader, my proposal unravels thus: Our true selves are ONLY manifested by our actions.* Literally.
Now, you'd better sit down. Christian Bale, the dashing, self-actualized star of this film, happens to be none other that Miss Holm's first Hollywood crush. (A telling fact, indeed.) Furthermore, and not ironically, this particular fellow was the subject of the very first photograph posted as a basis for this site.
Wrap your head around that.
*Morally, I feel somewhat obligated to mention that my self-righteous prosecutor girlfriend may have helped a little in reaching this valuable, though vitriolic, conclusion.
The following paragraphs contain my attempt to: further theorize on the potential discrepency between our self-percieved versus outwardly-constructed identities, present an example to illustrate an aspect of self that was at one time revealed by our revered Christine about her own innerworkings, and, in a very concise way... (wait for it)... bring this little publication fuuuuullllllll circle.
My ambitions are endless,
and
I shall keep you in anticipation no longer.
You've seen Batman. You love Batman. No one you know is better equipped to grapple with the dark, complex intricacies of the individual psyche than Batman. Perhaps you all will recall the scene in Batman Begins when Bruce Wayne poignantly utters this: "It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me." Batman says so. (This is not up for discussion.) In accordance with my unwavering conviction that all truths come from the mouth of the caped crusader, my proposal unravels thus: Our true selves are ONLY manifested by our actions.* Literally.
Now, you'd better sit down. Christian Bale, the dashing, self-actualized star of this film, happens to be none other that Miss Holm's first Hollywood crush. (A telling fact, indeed.) Furthermore, and not ironically, this particular fellow was the subject of the very first photograph posted as a basis for this site.
Wrap your head around that.
*Morally, I feel somewhat obligated to mention that my self-righteous prosecutor girlfriend may have helped a little in reaching this valuable, though vitriolic, conclusion.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Who would I be if I were who they say I am?
Poll: How much of any person is actively constructed in any given situation with a specific fueling intention, and how much just, is? Is 'being' even an option? Who the hell am I?
I fatally brood over other people's motivations, but less often do I wonder about my own intentions. When I wake in the morning, how am I deciding what to wear? I work in an office where my coworkers are my public; people wear pajamas to work. Dressing nicely gets you accused of going on an interview. Why do I ever dress nicely for work? When I respond to an inquiry with sarcasm or sincerity, how much of a choice am I actively making? How constructed am I? And what is my intent? With the right bust-to-waist-to-hips ratio, the right swagger, the right vocabulary and intonation, the right angle with a 35mm and focus of the lens, the right give-me-the-weight-and-do-what-you-will-I-am-not-so-breakable, could someone learn to be Christine?
Of all things I think myself to be, self-aware, I am not. A view of myself out is rather different from how I hear of the view looking in. Who is more accurate? I really don't feel like I am trying to be anything. And yet when something kind is said of me, I generally end up feeling rather awful, like I've lied, like I have been putting up a front, or rather, intentionally constructing a self that is pleasant for other people, even if I'm not sure what I've done.
But how long have artists and authors argued over intention? T.S. Eliot and kids of New Criticism, Barthes' and the deconstructionists (Begam's Critical Theories was one of my favorite classes), wanted the artist to be removed from the work, let it stand on its own - or rather, be subject to the understanding of the reader - and don't take biography, the creator, into account. Can that be done with a person? If we are no less constructed than The Wasteland? If I am what they say I am, am I just 'am', or am I then constructing myself to remain as they want me to be?
I fatally brood over other people's motivations, but less often do I wonder about my own intentions. When I wake in the morning, how am I deciding what to wear? I work in an office where my coworkers are my public; people wear pajamas to work. Dressing nicely gets you accused of going on an interview. Why do I ever dress nicely for work? When I respond to an inquiry with sarcasm or sincerity, how much of a choice am I actively making? How constructed am I? And what is my intent? With the right bust-to-waist-to-hips ratio, the right swagger, the right vocabulary and intonation, the right angle with a 35mm and focus of the lens, the right give-me-the-weight-and-do-what-you-will-I-am-not-so-breakable, could someone learn to be Christine?
Of all things I think myself to be, self-aware, I am not. A view of myself out is rather different from how I hear of the view looking in. Who is more accurate? I really don't feel like I am trying to be anything. And yet when something kind is said of me, I generally end up feeling rather awful, like I've lied, like I have been putting up a front, or rather, intentionally constructing a self that is pleasant for other people, even if I'm not sure what I've done.
But how long have artists and authors argued over intention? T.S. Eliot and kids of New Criticism, Barthes' and the deconstructionists (Begam's Critical Theories was one of my favorite classes), wanted the artist to be removed from the work, let it stand on its own - or rather, be subject to the understanding of the reader - and don't take biography, the creator, into account. Can that be done with a person? If we are no less constructed than The Wasteland? If I am what they say I am, am I just 'am', or am I then constructing myself to remain as they want me to be?
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