The Process

riding the torrance 3

the man, the same man
the men, the same men

they spread their sheets To ALL Believers in GOD, The Most High their sheets their honorable ministerial called him called bull shit shareef!pacific coast highway, torrance 3

8am, the barren
scrap metal wasteland beckons me
“pick your part”
and i count
all that i find beautiful
like pores on the arm
on the arm that is you
hahah

(reading jackfruit reading swings
turning my back to the congregation)

the ring
loosens itself. the ring
has been loosening. i moved it
to the next, the thicker
while a man who looks like
The Artist touches my arm
and walks away. and i see him again
and i see him again, the man, the same man!

(man 3 with a basket hat
who the dancer loves
gives me a glass of wine
and a gallon of smoke)

)(‘the man, the same man’
sings to the dying
and the nearly living dead))

and this really happened
and this is really happening
and they all smell like
scrap metal here
scrap metal and fish market
sweating disease, sweating
diseased bile
spraying piss and shit and
fish and piss and shit and
stacks of sheets
all the fuck over, what the fuck was i thinking
when i recited my number
getting on you, torrance 3
him on you, torrance 3
waiting for me, torrance 3
six minutes late, torrance 3
they left you, torrance 3
we left you, torrance 3
have mercy, torrance 3
have mercy
on me
torrance 3

fuck

 

THREE
so it happens

1 pendulum drift/shift
and summer spoiled:
i move

but what must i make of
the naked wires?
all arthritic

2 there is a
ribbon around your
hair, on fire

3 fifteen-day-old
seams (start the) swell
and we fuck like rabbits

4 again and again the
telephone yarn line
ripples taut. she doesn’t even

5 look at me. then
you two last night
talking about
insider things and
insider shit about
outsider art and i’m
not even on the
inside of the outer outside
of your inside
to partake and move
past my unnecessariness
in your nation
of two

6 woke this morning all
tender lead.
and while i could
widen the crevasse
i think i’ll
stay and write

7 can tandem bikes have
three wheels? i think so

8 she doesn’t even look at me

9 i took a benadryl with the
wine on saturday to
slow the transference
dot com

10 i can’t do what
ten people tell me to do
so i guess
i’ll remain the same
-otis redding

11 “i know what you need”
-he

12 “i feel weird”
-she not me

13 is an ouroboros

14 ba ngoai told me that
a girl is a rose in half-
bloom and men will
desire her until she
blooms full

15 ma never dated anyone
before dad. didn’t even
kiss anyone before dad. i
thought of this
wearing lace church socks
my feet in gynecological
stirrups, awaiting
stainless steel
transcendence
at fifteen

– AN

 

The Process

Hmm. I just like parallels—and finding them. The search is ongoing. Or perhaps not finding them, but rather stumbling upon them. Noticing them. Parallels in nature, the people I meet, the people I know, dreams, senses, my own constant inner dialogue, and the subtlest of occurences that seem to almost… wave to me to gain attention . The ever constant happening. If I find something inspiring, I’ll text it to myself and save it. I also archive dreams on my phone. Recently, I texted myself upon waking: “irisness repeating” and “lily and potsdam”. A month ago, “all for shipwreck jazzation and a little prehistoric preposterousness” and “do i understand like a woman and circuit the stride?” I’ll notice a butterfly falling from a tree, dragging its abdomen on the ground in a struggle to take flight, watch it for fifteen minutes and realize the parallels in my life to that. Or actually two days ago, I noticed the looseness of my turquoise ring on my fourth finger. It kept falling off. I then moved it to my middle finger and started thinking about the depth in that action—the thickness, the looseness, the slipping off, the moving on. It all correlates. Things happen—I notice. I save thigs. Last night or so, I saved the top ten popular Yahoo.com searches: “Iraq war. Shakira. Charles Darwin.” A few weeks ago, I saved the news headline “RELIGIOUS SIGHTINGS: MOTHER NATURE CRIES IN A MELTING GLACIER.” A week ago: “The jellyfish are swarming” “Meteor shower coming.” I’ll read about house insulation and find the phrase “conditioned space” beautiful and write “you reinforce conditioned space in hard, black holes.” Sometimes I’ll write one line and not be able to expand on it, so I’ll save it. A few months later, I’ll be writing a piece and the same line will come back and fit almost seamlessly. So documenting everything that stands out to me helps. I tend to only take paper notes when it comes to watching films or reading, now that I think about it. I’ll go through periods where all I can write about are certain recurring images. The last month, it’s been numerical and angular; threes, fifteens, sixes. Really, for me, the process is about making mental and physical notes—being conscious and aware of the hints that the universe gives me. That’s it.