There’s a man in the middle of the street saluting every vehicle that passes him by. There’s no median, no single or double yellow line, but he’s standing directly where either of those would be, and whether coming or going, heading north or south, car or truck or larger vehicle or moped or motorcycle, he salutes each and every one, gazing for a brief moment directly at the windshield or helmet as he moves his outstretched right hand fervently over his brow.
Nobody even honks at the
guy. I watch him for about
ten minutes from where I’ve
stopped on the sidewalk
that runs alongside the
street, which is, I’d say,
significantly busier than
it normally is at this time
of day, or any other. Until it begins to rain, a sudden downpour, and I turn and— at a jog; I’ve not even worn a jacket today—head back in the direction I was heading before the gesturing interloper
caught my attention. After I’ve
gone about a half of a block at
a jog, I turn around long enough
to see the man who’s still standing
right in the middle of the street giving each automobile the same salute as before, even as the cars and trucks and bikes begin to logjam a bit. No one in this city remembers
Isn’t being lost another way of saying, “I’m here”? —Renee Gladman
This sounds good. I like it. It stopped me for a moment. Or two.
But what if nobody listens? What if I go about my day walking through the populated hallways and down the busy streets of the city in which I am a citizen, using mouth, throat and lungs to voice “I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.” and nobody, not even one person, acknowledges this proclamation, this announcement?
I come by my anger innocently enough. But I don’t want to talk about anger. I do not want to discuss love, either. I’d rather experience it, and in experiencing it, live it.
But what if I feel playful? What if I feel playful? The fact that I find myself at this moment rather dismissive of that thought should lead most of us to conclude that I do not feel playful.
What then? What then? Is this my life story in three short spasms? While I pause to consider that question, its redundancy, I’ll
revel in how expansive it grows in my mind,
as if an explosion were the inevitable conclusion.
Normally, I can’t stand the present. So I move on. This gets me out of here. Hence, I continue to live,
I exist. I continue. Because I’m always moving out of the present. Away from
now. When you tell me to slow down, I do keep moving, but I have learned the art of placing
one foot firmly into the ground— so that the foot is buried—while the other foot is stretching and stretching until it is almost out of the picture, until
it is almost on the horizon; only the upper part of it (my leg), because the foot itself, the one at the end of the stretched leg, is outside of the frame,
but it remains in my mind. Which is to say that I am of two minds, once you have told me to slow down, as you always do. With
one leg half-buried in the ground that is directly beneath me, and one stretched so far away from me, from us, from its twin,
the other foot, the other leg, that it cannot be seen, be ascertained, except in my mind, which
is split. It is only when I am of two minds that I can truly sense the
movement, the vector and all of its associated mathematics, that I can see, with my two minds,
through my minds’ two (four?) eyes, that I can sense a direction, the something
that is in relation to where I am. This process
builds me until I am of two minds and can see, and can sense, that I am
moving in whichever direction, that the
feet, both of which I can no longer see, the one that is buried, as it relates to the
one that is so far in the distance that it
cannot be seen, that this command, which I obey, is how I get to know myself, how I become myself, this angle (angel?) that
I have become, where that outstretched leg
now points in relation to the one that is buried. That is who I am; I exist in this movement. I have direction.
Just by show of hands, how many people here meditate? —Amy Poehler
to which alanis morissette says it can cause “meditation-induced anxiety” – in truth, watching this week’s ‘good hang’ has been but a diversion. i can barely contain myself.
elation. ever heard of the band meute? they’ve been around for eleven years, says wikipedia (which, sadly, will soon surely be extinct thanks to artificial intelligence). which
continues to say they are an 11-piece “self- described techno marching band from germany [that] arranges techno, house and deep house works by well-known djs.” well, what i feel
watching either of their videos has me elated, and that would have been about the best way i could describe that feeling until this morning, when i woke up to read about the
democrats taking control of both the house and the senate after yesterday’s election.
It is 2:30 in San Francisco on a Tuesday morning three days after Halloween and I have just watched the third episode of The Diplomat (season four). There are flies on the windscreen. Depeche Mode is chanting the soundtrack to the night; death is, indeed, everywhere. A fictional diplomat passes alongside a famous spaceship captain. The latter happens to
be one I might call a hero. I relay to my
world that I am not ready. But how could I
be less prepared for the passing of fictional
folks and the people who portray them,
given that I have been without my mother
now for ten weeks. The reason I am aware of how long it’s been since she left this world is because she never disappears from the queue on the application I use for making most of the calls on my phone. I don’t have enough of that (or any other) kind of interaction to see her disappear from the viewable list that is called up every time I send a text message or make a call. The pact I’ve made with myself has me moving ever so gently past that subject to keep my spirits high, and it seems to be working, for the most part. I’ve been reading the work of my favorite dead poet, which also helps. Otherwise, I would not recommend such gliding about upon surfaces for the limbo in which it has me now living, but those of us who practice efficiency, who are above all practical, begin by weighing pros and cons to determine whatever route might give the biggest pile of positivity. That
becomes our road less traveled. Honestly, I think this practice is beginning to dumb me down, to make me lazy. But, with an excessive amount of grunts and sighs and eye-rolling I’ve managed to tick several important items off of my list of more
urgent tasks today, so despite being surrounded by death’s darkness I am in pretty good spirits, I’d say. But it is past three in the morning and I’m not so daft that I’m unaware of a fairly pressing need for rest, for sleep. So I’ll stopper my thoughts as best I can for the time being.
While unfocused, I notice that my friend of many years, who had dropped by the night before to keep me entertained, apparently
has written something on my wall, next to the northernmost window that looks out upon the alley next
to my apartment building. It appears
to be written using a black marker. I
stare at the writing for a long time from
where I am perched on the other side
of the room, unable to make out any
of the words, or even any letters. Also, thanks again to my creative friend, there is
an anaconda crawling over the banker’s lamp
that I found last year, and brought home,
to paint and then place upon my desk,
which is situated below the window that now has, mid-way down its frame, the markings in black that I am still
trying to decipher from too far away.
Another friend calls me. He tells me
he has been involved in an accident while commuting upon his electric
bicycle down Nob Hill one recent evening
after work. He says he must have fallen
asleep. At some point later,
he says to me he woke up in a
hospital and was told that he had
broken his clavicle, had fractured a couple
of his ribs and might have a concussion. He later calls to update me on a doctor visit, mentions
wanting pizza. I throw some fruit into a bag,
run to the corner store, purchase a frozen
pizza for him and a few snacks for myself, then drop by his apartment to give him
the fruit and the pizza. Back home, I continue to refuse to walk over to the window
to read whatever it is that my friend had
scribbled next to it in black marker. I
think of the ceramic hearts and butterflies the same friend had glued next to the light switch
in my bathroom a short time after I moved
into this place. I sit watching
podcasts and news broadcasts about the
upcoming election (which is in a few days), in
various states of anxiety and hope. Among the
things I had planned on completing was voting,
and my ballot lies on the bed beside me. I
read poetry between the clips of election
coverage. The room gets a bit chilly so I pull a
blanket from in front of me to wrap around and
cover my legs. This inability to focus has been a
pretty consistent thing with me over the past few months. I let that thought ring and then echo a bit in my head. The room is otherwise silent
but for a lone fan that sits next to the other window in my room, which also looks out upon
the alley next to my apartment building. I manage
to somehow rid myself of most of the day’s anxiety,
so that I become lighthearted and calm as the day approaches its end. I do not know how I was able to transition from the stressful day into such peace,
but I do not spend time trying to understand
it. My focus remains on the surface of things, and keeps darting about wildly, and I simply allow my mind to coast with ease from one subject, whatever it might be, to another.
I took a cab then walked then caught a bus and now I’m on a train. —Micah Ballard
I’m losing my touch. I’m no longer in touch with my fair city. I am up until 2am playing games by myself, which is the opposite of engagement, my religion. I’m engaged, but
the opposite of engaging. Taped to my door when I return from my doctor’s appointment is a notice that lets me know that my apart ment building is being painted beginning this
week and it goes on to demand that I shut my windows between the hours of 8am and 5pm on weekdays until the painting is completed. I missed my food pantry today because the
appointment with my doctor took much longer than expected. By the time I left the doctor’s office to head back home I was ravenous. The car that had been arranged to take me home
canceled so another car had to be called to take its place. But within five minutes the second car had arrived and I hopped in to head home through the lunch hour traffic, growing
more and more sullen thanks to my hunger.
Once home, I ate in too much of a rush and, feeling exhausted, laid down and slept until after 7pm, when I received a call from my
boyfriend. We carried on with intermittent laughter for exactly fifty-nine minutes, said good night to each other, and I then played video games for another three hours, then
wrote a few lines of what I call poetry. Be tween games I catch a few political podcasts, and all the while keep promising myself that I’ll watch The Invite before going back to sleep.
i could offer that i am nothing if not sincere. and i could then stop right there. and the broad spectrum of interpretation that even a rather compact set of individuals might each individually deduce from that fairly straight forward encapsulation of who i say that i am— and i am me, and that is the first thing that came to my mind as i thought of how i might describe myself in such a way that i might give the best and most complete picture, should you have no idea of me, within just one line of text—
well, it just goes to show how language and com
munication and words and all that we might use
in an attempt to relay with clarity to others, whether
it is our most feeble or even the most elaborate
or perhaps the most concise line we come up with
in an attempt to unveil something we believe to be
a significant aspect of who we are, if that is what we
wish to do, if that is our assignment, to do so as if
our life were dependent upon doing so. but we are
not automatons. relaying just this one line might
reveal such varied and broad interpretations from
any set of individuals who take such a synopsis in,
that entire novels might be from all of the various
interpretations that each might relay back; and in
summation the sum of those descriptions might
paint a character with such a centrifugal personality
that no reader would be able to find anything to
cling to that might identify them, they might in
no way resemble the person, yourself, about
whom you had in earnest tried to describe but
one important trait. and this might even give
give one pause about why it might even be
important, human character, much less that
of our own, causing us to question any of the
core values and tenets with which we have
come to identify as ourself, the key tenets
we embrace as ours. making matters even
more difficult is the fact that this exercise
assumes we know ourself enough to attempt
such an exercise, and it does not even take
into consideration how much bigger that
canvas becomes if we do not begin with a
common language. there are so many ways
to interpret a line of words strung upon a page
that were meant to give you, directly from me,
something that is significant about who i am. if
i were to spend as much time as i could trying
with words i come up with to give you the essence
as best as i can of that characteristic, it might
then come back as iterated by you so far away
from what i had intended that i might get bogged
down in the perplexity, i might literally exhaust myself in an attempt to get just one other person to see one thing that, to me, is, and for as far back as i can recall, a characteristic of my own self that i cling to as if it is authoritative, as if it were severe ly pertinent, overarching and primary among my many characteristics. and, what might make me truly throw my hands up in resignation over what seems at first to be a simple exercise is how closely who i think i am resembles in utter reality the person who every day isme, who acts as me, who walks through this life as no one else but me. and, truth be told, the older i get,
the less i can with confidence assume that i really know who i am. so to give you a description of something that
is certain and basic about myself is an infinitely complex
and mysterious and beautiful and exhausting and
impossible task. but if i am confident of one thing alone,
it is that this task might be the most important thing we
can and should continue to attempt to do. and when a
person returns that favor by attempting to reveal any
thing that is theirs, accept such a gift with the respect
of listening as wholly as you might. and never stop
trying to learn all you can about the hearts of others
and relaying anything so that one might catch even
a reasonable tiny true glimpse of any part of you.
i’ve had one eye on this cubbyhole here without moving the target of that single-eyed focus for about eighteen hours. so i do most sincerely apologize for your frazzled wreck of a man over there. i have seen so much in this brief yet explosive life, but i can say without a tiny hint of deception that i have never seen any living human work so hard to get but such a slim duration of that sharp focus that comes in single pop staccato from the groove that is so permanently sewn into the heart of the most transitory spasms of your unwavering and yet dangerously endearing attention.
for a few moments we each got lost in our own versions of etymology. when lydia
walked into the room, the person who appeared to be the leader was addressing the classy crew, “okay, it’s time
to do a bit of time travel.” lydia quietly assessed how calm the charge, tried to mirror that tranq uility with what she had come to
believe was her superpower. she seated herself with a slow-motion grace that, what emanated from the beauty
of such deliberate movement numbed the
perimeters of consciousness of the inhabitants
of that comfortable space, taking the edge off of the cumulative verifiable presence within the
room. her presence had not only been accepted, but it had done so by those present
with such mutual acceptance
and ease that all were working almost instantly as one. and with such an openness. the
cooperation was so ideal that the aforementioned ”leader” took an extra long breath, expanding coolly out of what had been
a necessary moment, releasing her charge until an equanimity took hold, until neither of the individuals, not one soul in that space, could with any of the laboratory’s tools (which were
the best available, and the best were truly stellar) measure
even a micron of inferiority or superiority. this had always been the goal. and we each remained equally
insistent upon maintaining it, unwavering but for
such moments of transition that had just been
experienced; entrances, occasional exits, rare dispersals that long ago and for time immemorial had so carefully and gently been built into their lives,
its structure, so that their civilization could now and for all times, an expanding stasis, as a whole, as one, progress; no individual, no citizen, ever relying or leaning upon this perfection,
this expansion, any more than another, no one stumbling or losing a bit of footing during such transitions, relying any more or less upon a thing. this peaceful and enlightened whole, as one, progressing, no individual....
“are you upset about my premonition,” i ask him, “about you and your quinoa this morning?” imaginary beginnings.
trying to learn how not to walk straight, i always seem to walk a line (it’s alright if this has you thinking of johnny cash).
when gliding through semi-consciousness, barely touching upon any context, except that we’re dancing, me and my machine. and
we’ve all the context we need (the only memorable thing thus far, now that you are reminded by a change in volume
that you had hit play on a recent tiny desk concert that now replays on the big television screen at the foot of the bed, to your right, just over
the still life of fruit and vegetables) noticing as you do that the lead rap-mama just used the word texts in some no doubt salacious sense but has pronounced it,
distinctly, texas. this is after she has sung three or four boring numbers at the top of the set. but now she turns the volume up as we all know
she can, stretching those bronx vowels at a clip that’s about twice as fast as a horse’s trot and, waving her arms around and about in
an illogical but fluid fashion, she shifts gears, booms: CHANGE THE VIBES! CHANGE THE VIBES! CHANGE THE VIBES!
whatever stain from being so down and out for the past few years, no matter how impossible it is to
scrub away the ink of that squalor (life in the institution of destitution) .... i grew up with folks who worked like mad just to
ensure us kids got to coast up through adolescence and beyond unaware of any hardcore financial obstacles – oh, we each
got our mandatory turns helping clip coupons, it’s not like frugality wasn’t preached at us from numerous angles and with regularity, but
we had it easy peasy. whatever my father’s lesser dreams or otherwise perverted desires (of which there seemed a
seemingly endless supply), his overarching motivation of giving us each a better life than he had when our age was the loudest,
the most consistent. just back from my weekly food pantry clack-tapping these lines onto the laptop perched upon
my circular pillow, my wrists bouncing around on either side of touchpad, rocking it back and forth atop my bed, next to a pile of cantaloupe,
bok choi, onions, tiny white potatoes, zucchini, green oranges, squash, lemons, a package of spaghetti and two big bags of green lentils.
oh, when your lower back is hurting and your body can’t help but begin to dance like a marionette that mimics the oversized cellphone or the miniature
word processor that dances before you, at your whim, and you’re sated (but slightly dry-mouthed) by the multi-colored array that’s wrapped like a cornucopia
half-in, half-out of your fuzzy brown comforter that you promise yourself will go into the wash this evening, when you’ll clean, chop and then sauté a select and generous
assortment in the frying pan you’ve been wanting for years
but have only just this week been able to purchase.....and
you’re not much of a chef but you just know you have
so much desire and you’ve become convinced that you have an intense potential for talent—so much so (and this happens often enough) that you can barely contain yourself.
heart to heart (another sonnet with a big blue wave)
I was careful to use the right words —Micah Ballard
watched it stroke the midnight sometimes i’m a person who’d much rather relay all the feels there’s so much more and at such a faster pace is life really happ
ening again? and i must repeat that it is not that i am holding back what i hold deciding not to reveal i have my reasons death is not one of them sounds like a diversion
the jackhammer has the sidewalk pur ring tonight a loss of self forces a hand sense of self? sincerest self boards boost bodies over behemoth wave at one and some
