some grand thing about monogamy
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“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t sense you’re wired for monogamy. And that’s okay (if that’s true) bec we are all on a different journey”
almost leapt like a tiger to respond with another long voice message (she said she loves those) ~ i will :)
there is no rush to alignment
the thrill of making piecemeal art is anticlimactic; the complete image is an ongoing liquid immersion in the possible, a four-person dance party of two customers, two employees; one cannot get further than today; Austin is random run-ins in coffee shops, breakfast tacos, chill; I can make no mistake; the drama of not being good enough is being replaced by silence and sexual desire; there is no Core thing to make sure I lead you to, no point to my act; or, I can always restate and elaborate, say it again; silence is an open door and a hand extended—maybe it’s human to wish to connect and combine, engage, these trite words which end up being essential
i have failed to answer the question, her question, but Time is a Giver not a Thief now (that I’m older? that i’ve moved to a new city? that I’m beyond fear and expectation? That I trust life? Am I enlightened? All I really have is a separate privacy I milk like a calf, a prized heifer I stroke and brush, feed by hand
“And sometimes
I want to win. And sometimes I want to lose so badly
I can taste it. To surrender everything I’m made of:
the neat, fenced acres of my separateness —
that little plot of land I’ve spent a life defending —
to let go until there’s nothing left of me
but that great vault we spoke of,
its endless dark, its pitiless silence.”
— Danusha Laméris, from “Worlds in Worlds,” Bonfire Opera
I almost overheated and instantly spawned and spewed a voice message (“I ❤️ long messages” she said 🤩)
first Love in a while, and it’s cleaned my eyes (this post is now a mess, an oil spill of explosive vignettes which are really just lambs; someone else (maybe me in the future) can delete and clean this up, but (and here’s my art opinion) it shouldn’t be anything else; books and finality are bullshit, you can always just say the next thing; jazz is about not playing the same thing twice—can’t live in yesterday! NEW ALL THE TIME!! Can’t just tweet everything that comes to your mind, it’s been said; ah, I’m losing you, I’m giving you reason to ABANDON ME and isn’t abandonment at the center of monogamy…trying to permanently fill the hole, to engineer a permanent having-someone, whereas being alone is the generative place: generating swimming strokes, your own arms dragging you back to completion and unity (these are the right words; I am incapable of reeling them in, reducing them into a Book; of course, marriage is like publishing a book; it becomes true that checking these traditional boxes of achievement does nothing, because there remains an openness, this day, hunger and wonder to itch and fill with experience——and having children is a relief, because then it isn’t about You anymore ~ monogamy is an invitation to having kids and loving the country, flying the flag (THIS IS ALL JUST PRACTICE)
Maybe this whole thing is about how I love everyone, but prefer having one Queen above the rest ~ my “explanation” would be I bring intimacy into my work…but keep firm boundaries; ha! My answer is actually simple; I prefer to keep my life undramatic, quiet, safe, daily, so I can sink into routine and grow an inch a day
i am not an expert on arranging, sorting, editing and changing the foliage of vignettes that unfold when i have something to say; this is allowed to be a mess; I am allowed to be a mess
feeling myself tripping up on explaining why i am wired for monogamy; this is not a DATE-ME document though i’m happy to tell you my daily routine but also how I take you on as a second soul
2–3 hours of quality time a day, but mostly love is not looking at each other but outward in the same direction—self-employment is a religion; the openness to possibility on the other side of being directed by making someone else’s wealth increase (ah! but! entrepreneurship is about making some numbers go up, these vital signs we distract ourselves with while others in our lives are not really dying…until they are ~ coffee shop workers worry lightly about expired milk; observation is poetic necessarily; I am too heady, should just knock over the coffee cup and delight in the spill; ah, the safe boy invents disasters to keep his catastrophizing mind busy, since disaster is his God——what to do without a problem? One finds or makes one;
Gonna try doing a little dictation bit and see where this goes I am wired for monogamy because you gain so much when you have the right partner I don't like loving more than one person at a time I'd rather make her my one and only queen and I don't need sex for more than one person because between two people you have unlimited sexual possibilities if you risk reviewing what you might like and giving it a try and dancing with discomfort and seeing what might be strange and unpleasant and all this is a discovery of the divine and learning your own rules and rediscovering who your gods are and ultimately underneath all of this longing and bitterness and memory and impatience we find our own portrait (that was a dictation i could edit if i want)
I really were following my art all the way to the end I would just keep making large statues made out of stream of consciousness and keep piling it up and letting it be a mess letting it be a mistake letting it be disrespectful to my dearest most treasured readers because I'm realizing the voice just goes after what I cannot reach and what I long for which is you you you you and this is an ongoing slam poetry performance of reaching out from within your own wound that won't heal and trying to reach for another hand which ends the voice memo brings you to peace of mind and this is exhausting to keep doing but it's the most important work there is to do to realize your own limitations and to perfect the hand with which you reach out from your own depths (debts!!! HILARIOUS PERFECT TYPO) (is it divine or selfish to not edit these transcriptions?
HE’S GOT ANXIETY, one of the hot two twentysomethings working this coffee shop in downtown Austin, Texas 🤠 cowgirl creamery 🍼💦 sexual desire is something (and this was the point!) to draw you toward responsibility, baby-making, tax-paying, flag-waving, ground-kissing; yes, PRIDE (a sin? a sun? a son? to miss the mark, to ruffle the graveyard, the gravy ward, pour me another, mommy milker) lol i can’t publish this and i will, it is a flesh wound, a gash revealing the stars inside——this isn’t art, this is boyish practice
humiliation can be art; dumping your shame and running away from it
been intrigued and stimulated by these out-of-home ads around Austin; is it because she might be underage? Rule-breaking, outlaw behavior? A craving for punishment and also forgiveness? Sexual desire is a route to God, for sure; at my best I vomit all the anguish up (let me admit my own childhood sexual trauma! Now it’s so easy ~ I’m so familiar with my soul, and know I am alone in imagination and memory; the artist writes about what’s in their heart, and it’s a Golden Age of revelation, confession; the challenge then is politics, economics, money, housing; which of course dip to the level of your self-worth and self-respect
should i be loud about what my shame is? girls are hot; these could be BAD LYRICS; maybe the point is to DISCARD ALL THIS, empty out, BORE THE READER WITH MY BEING TYPICAL, kill the old/current Me so a New One can be born; this is wildflowers, and if I burn them off, I am left in the world of flesh to delight; it is stupid, writing this as an older man in a suit jacket in a coffee shop——is this all just raucous desire to implant my seed? To get carnal pleasure? Being right about this is stupid; admitting this is funny, is art, is unnecessary (there is so much art; everyone is pouring their molten reckless lava into the computer, making digital sculpture; I suppose some get bored and turn to being observers
“Social media is riddled with burning towers. Once people realize no one is really interested in their mundane lives, not even their shenanigans, they return to being observers, only they don’t know where to direct their eyeballs!”
is my longing for wholeness a latent entertainment unicorn? could be search for completion be prime-time TV? am i like any other child? i am cast back into the past, remembering something
and then, the intensity of the openness upon non-arrival
I DIDN’T ANSWER THE QUESTION, let me try again
It's funny how much trouble I have answering the call to explain that I am wired for monogamy because two lovers is too many I'd much rather focus and let my eyes and sexual desire focus on one body and then I can put my fingers and tongue to work for her exploring orifices letting her trust another man to hold her feminine glory dripping wet you know I don't mind going all these wet warm places because it really is where we long to go if we start on the computer and we start far away from each other what we really want is unity, to pledge allegiance to come together on this earth and re-discovered the milk and honey and fruit we are made of the meat and potatoes that have formed our bodies and we want to pray we want to unite we want to say amen and hallelujah
there’s something in here about fatherhood too—seeing “hot girls” as daughters and sisters rather than hookup components
where to put my sin: SO MANY SKINNY GIRLS WITH PERFECT SMALL TITS, pierced belly button and bare midriff ~ dumping sin in public could be art; “saying the courageous thing”, doing the useful thing——am i ashamed my life is easy? it won’t last
she’s so cute in her overalls, i could brush her hair to the side
nobody look at this; let it pile up as big data, fictional dream data
am i still peeling layers? i accept the mature poet’s job: to want to be seen, and also not seen;
vomit up a bunch of bricks and carve it back into something you’re not ashamed of, a totem of your essence, a statement about your identity, what you can be relied upon for—usefulness, a man of Value, that awful Church of people online trying to become real——that ache; i don’t believe there is an end, there are more days before death to FALL IN LOVE IN and pledge allegiance to a patch of dirt with your name on it: mortgaged houses, epitaphs for the living
is it art to publish this and walk away without answering the question? i am gobsmacked at how immature i still am, and how unlike the institutional poets with polite social media output with pictures of them at events citing the right books they actually read, as opposed to me, i dump my mind into the frazzle and frenzy of Twitter…to me it’s more alive than books, also PODCASTS and MUSIC … call this messy autobiography (as if i need more raw material, as if any of us are short on raw material)
he tried to say something and then wandered into his shame; better to just send the message instead, stop living in social media; art is practice for life
