The Friars

27.10.07

hot rod pause II


Something like Cannonball Run II only slower and hearkening back to L.B. Jeffries of Rear Window. I am having my hot rod pause and have come to realize: how far things are away from each other--to me there is a brutality in distance; and two, there is no place to sit down, another brutality. There needs to be bench building philanthropy. And I am going to go so far as to suggest that there is a cultural bias to liken weak to lazy. These notions have come to me by way of rupturing my Achilles tendon. I was not chasing Hector around Priam's palace but improvising, skipping in fact, had just done some plee-ays, and was for some moments before that a hot air balloon raising myself with a throaty imitation of a gas jet. Then the tendon snapped and rolled up in my calf like a window shade. My surgery is Tuesday. Six weeks more in a 'caste', then physical therapy.

In the ER I was talking to the nurse. I might have been unconsciously like Ivan Ilych metaphorically wanting my legs held up. We talked about lots of things really. I kept her talking. She told me how she deals with the sights of emergencies. "How do you make sense of it?" I asked her. "You don't," she said. "All that is, is good." Yes And I suddenly thought about people like the police, nurses, doctors, people who are with a random public in need and I was in awe.

Jon asked me if I'd thought--as I had been considering what is next, after graduation, grad school, job, etc.--he asked me if after the ER and all that, if I was now attracted to medicine. No. But I am envious of the direct impact that they have on other people's lives, as well as grateful for the care they'd/are giving me. And today, while reading, I have been looking up from time to time and wondering what does writing do.

--quiet aside from being able or not to have large pool built in the shape of hip pocket notebook with a mock pen as the diving board and be well provided with chicken salad--

...but have been wondering if writing comes before or after other events in having an impact on this bounteous human florescence--culture. As thinkers it seems appropriate to entertain at least both possibilities, even to believe them simultaneously; this in a word is tolerance. And I wonder then, to add an even greater focus to the question: how is writing situated in the maintenance of this fragile and first concept--and I think it is vitally situated. Why this is so might speak of (or from) a deeper dilemma--perhaps even the same as that old argument between the absolute and the specific; regardless, communication, an extension of touch.

Today at the orthopedic surgeon's a nurse asked me why I hadn't signed in. "I didn't know I had to sign in," I told her. The words do not at all convey the expression I am sure that I wore, same as a child might have looking up for the familiar but finding tall passing strangers. Bewilderment is amplified in waiting rooms.

Before in the ER, new with crutches I asked were the bathroom was and was told down the hall and then to the left...or right, I now can't remember. As far as that suddenly seemed I tried to make a joke at the nurses station, "by the time I get to the end of the hall I'll probably have forgotten if its left or right." After that I was released and waited for my cab, talked to my Mom on the phone, and realized there was no place to sit down. She said how if she had lots of money somehow I would not have gotten injured because... just because. Then she warned me how plucking nose hairs can be fatal. Why? The news man said so on the radio. But how does that work, I asked. "You don't listen," she told me.

But overall I have to say this experience is exciting. And any change that brings insight is awesome. I am not it pain. And medically, the injury is not serious--reminding me of the important distinction between danger and discomfort. And a world of the formerly injured has opened up to me. Crutches are a great conversation piece. And if I ever felt entitled to blow-jobs now is the time. We'll see how much effort that takes on my part. Meanwhile, the complete works of Balzac, all 36 volumes has arrived--good timing. And also, I have found that it costs a penitence to have groceries delivered--genius! And as a consequence an enormous amount of my beloved bubbly water is on its way--quantities I would never ever have carried up the stairs. The injury in other words, besides casting me into the unknown, the fear, the trust, and realizing the dear compassion of my fellows has also made me wonder if I will ever grocery shop again, which had formerly been one of my favorite places to talk on the phone.

I am also left pondering a metaphor--that as soon as it is realized lends itself to a kind of archeology: the scar, one left by a surgeon. Evidence of healing it hovers on the surface but also signals an earlier trauma. Similar to a tattoo, a surgeon's marks are written across various bodies, and my doctor has left these pragmatic rivulets from Buenos Aires to Chicago, not part of a tributary but shapes specific to the injury--that is, of the covered having been reached--a mending. I wonder in what ways writing is also like this scar, a shape drawn, striking through the surface of water that then remains. These words even, are secondary to a deeper, even a desperate intention: to know, to be known, to reach out, to touch, be touched and share an embrace. To erase the brutal distance of skin and yet preserve feeling. Words. They fall loudly aside like spent shells or broken crutches, legs held up in the air.

r

22.10.07

hot rod pause


"Hurry-up Dean-O! They're getting away!"


"Easy now. I got my eye on 'em."


z

18.10.07

It's Soup Season!!!

FIVE DRAGONS PORK SOUP

1 medium onion (diced)
1 pablano pepper (chopped)
1 habenero pepper (finely chopped) optional
2 carrots (chopped)
4 stalks of napa (leaf and stalk chopped) could use bok choy
several large mushrooms (chopped)
3 cloves of garlic (diced)
2 boneless smoked pork chops (diced)
32 oz organic chicken broth
1 tablespoon Oyster Sauce
several dashes Soy Sauce
several dashes Fish Sauce
several dashes Sriracha Sauce
half tablespoon of Chinese Five Spices*
cashews and cilantro to garnish

Saute vegetables in oil (preferably peanut) over medium heat for five minutes, add pork and continue cooking for several more minutes, add the four sauces and stir vigorously, add chicken broth, add Chinese Five Spices, stir and let simmer for at least 15 minutes. Add chopped cilantro and cashews when served.

*Chinese Five Spices consists of: Szechuan Peppercon, Ground Cloves, Cinnamon, Fennel & Star Anise

--eL vIkIngO


16.10.07

Listen Liu, you don't speak for everyone

"The move of the United States is a blatant interference in China's internal affairs, hurts the feelings of the Chinese people and has gravely undermined relations between China and the United States," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that we didn't hurt the Tibetans' feelings.


Growing lonely in the damp dark

Walk slowly on soaked slate concrete

Cool wind rustles the leaves

My whistle carries down empty paths

Haunted with mailboxes and garbage cans

Wondering why we live here at all

Strangers pass in the glare of headlamps

Animals with shelters drug up from the earth

Gliding dazed through moribund lives

Never looking down at the small stones

Scarred of the empty streets

My pocket shakes and rings

Kicking rocks into dull culverts

Wishing it was warmer

Talking about the sky

And I am walking home

h

I made this into a song and recorded it right after I wrote it, no prep. Thought it might be fun.

CLICK TO HEAR MUSICAL VERSION!


12.10.07

I am like you without thoughts
or reasons to tend with drops of sun
and rays of water
you pour onto your balcony garden down
from closed heaven and up
from empty hell.

You are my finger taps
fingernail clicks on peels of furnish.
you will, can, won’t, can’t
stop and think and stop.

You are a master of invisible arts
and I am not your lone following
I will never rest
between the creative and scientific
chunks of your frantic brain
for a day.

I am the fireplace
you have never owned,
and will never need.

I will rest
at the fork of love
and appreciation.



lhl

9.10.07

i am like you without talk
under rain like a leaf
heavy full then empty
filling a moonless river
in a snake
murmurs of white lilies
like bare feet on cold soil
sparks
through treetops
clouds teasing
the skin away
hollow
love


r

8.10.07



5.10.07

Did I post this one already? (lhl)

You should see these girls. Goddamn.
They are like upright praying mantises. They need prayer.
(Falling on their knees might cause them to crack.)
The barbie dolls printed on their polka dotted purses:
obese compared to these girls.

You should see how these girls eat. Goddamn
the slippery fried coconut cream and green onion
heated into half moons, brown and crispy at the rounded bottom
eggy at the flat top. These girls shove them into their mouths
and wash them down with orange sugar tea.

You should see how small their sleeve holes are, white and dainty
uniform shirts with the university button over the right cherry breast.
Their black mini splits got not back but their heels match their lips
and both click across the path to their classes. These girls
are impossible. You should see

them, gorgeous as ivory goddamn
pencils. Men gawk at their bones and fantasize
(making love to these girls=sending them into full body casts)
Send these girls to the moon where they would bounce into flight.
You wouldn't see these girls land.

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