Hope is a town in BC

I drink water bottled in Hope,
I wear my hair up today,
I sort through miniature photo cards
of Mexico.

Paseo de la Reforma,
Monumento a la Independencia,
Monumento a la Revolucion.

Postage: 1 1/2 cent without message.

They are trading cards, tarot cards,
and if I laid them out on Ave. Juarez,
I'd see my worth in the valley
and my future in the hills.

THE FOURTH WALL

I am sitting on this bench, a makeshift bleacher, only 4 benches high, looking out onto an empty football field, littered only with mud, twigs and one couplet ~ two lovers on a blanket, their shoes off, their arms entwined.

The sun is behind a row of oaks which are beyond the field and form a stage curtain, a reverse proscenium arch, which means I am backstage, peering out into the sun.

OUVRE LES RIDEAUX DE TES YEUX

For Bo: [I am an island]

Today I drove along Landsend road, tracing the edge of the island, each turn of the wheel like blunt scissors cutting off the water like refuse.

To my surprise, amongst all the trees that look like totems, I found a temple, and as I drove away I thought about its beaded trim and rounded rooves.

Upon my return, Mt. Baker was a darker pink than before, and the Yellow Wolf Pow-Wow stood still.

the empty threats of little lord

Losing teeth, losing hair, both always coming out in my hands. I feel like I'm half way through this, then I think again, and then I think again. Look back, check it, check back again. Stopping myself is like wrenching a welder, his arms full of steel Rebars piled up like logs of wood, away from an Arc magnet from Hunan province: a slow struggle, eyes averting all shiny surfaces and panes of glass, back to the wall, head in hands. And yet I keep waking up from my dreams with empty hands.

from "les fleurs du mal"

Mais tout cela ne vaut pas le poison qui decoule de tes yeux,
de tes yeux verts.
Lacs ou mon ame tremble et se voit a l'evers.
Mes songes viennent en foule pour se desalterer a ces gouffres amers.

the seagulls are

circling again, flying where i can see them, straight into the middle of the 90 degrees. it looks as if they're about to crash, then they slide right through at 45, never missing the mark.

it's the same window. it's the same roof. it's probably even the same fucking seagull.

as i left seattle, i watched a starling flying alongside our moving bus, suspended by its own speed, just to the right of the antenna. it carried on for a long time and i thought of a horse racing a train racing the light trying to deny that time moves in a straight line.

this is way off topic, but it suddenly came to mind:

Dear Swimmers:

"My/heart's in my chest,/you snake"

Any part of the world that matters is now contained within a waltz (fast or slow) or the back of a bookshop on a Saturday, the changing sky at Cape Scott or my white lamp against the late sunlight.

And the horsemen that skirt the lakes in search of the secrets of the depths as anthems blaze in their torches they look to the shores.

Light pollution, mute pollution

It's dark outside apart from a distant white light that hangs like neon fog (neo fog?) behind the trees and the telephone lines. Is it possible they're still playing soccer at this hour, the light catching on the iridescent numbers of their shirts as their cleats dig into the wet pitch?

I brace myself here, my legs still peddling up hill.

It smells of heat.

There are no edges to the fog.

I look at it again and the telephone pole is lit up from behind like a marquee by a searchlight in the rain. But the light is still and the rain falls and the pole becomes a lighthouse in the neon fog.

Neo light.

from "A nos amours" (criterion extras)

translated from the french:

"Pialat is much more of a critic than I am. By critic, I mean he thinks in terms of crises; that's the true meaning of critic. He creates a crisis, and from that he evokes ideas and concepts"

-interview w/ Jean-Michel Frodon

This definition of critic is a huge revelation to me on so many levels.
So was Maurice Pialat's film.
After watching A nos amours and all the extras, I went and pulled out an enveloppe of photos of me when I was 15 or 16. I'm still unsure how to gauge my reaction. I hadn't seen them in a long time and had to really search for them in my closet. I was actually looking for some old pieces of writing that I suddenly felt in a panic to find after turning off the dvd, but came across the photos instead.
I only now realised how obviously connected this was to the film.
Almost embarassingly so.

You being born on the first day of winter, I being born on the first day of fall:

I rode my bike to the gates where families sat on benches eating ice cream. Walking the length of the breakwater, pairs of fishermen, pairs of drinkers and pairs of lovers flanked the path towards the lighthouse. At the end I sat down and tried to pretend I was at the end of a jetty in northern France. But I saw boats and birds and barnacles that could only come from the seascape right in front of me. On the way back to the shore, I felt the sun on my back but touched between my shoulder blades with the back of my right hand to recognise the warmth was there. As I did this I looked to my left and saw swaying green trees of seaweed, growing upside down, their roots floating at the surface of the water, their tops rooted with the starfish below.