.:wanderlustmedia+dot+org:.

(ars amatoria, circa 1985)
th streetlamps are on
I lie down in th middle of nowhere
you appear on th horizon & I walk yr way
I do not pursue when you run & hide
I find my way to th spot you fled & sit down
if I catch sight of you again I rise & continue
I do not believe I am going anywhere in particular
you seem to be making yr way into th wild
I am better at ease in th open grasslands but I figure th forest will suit me in yr company if you lose me I

will search out a clearing:
I will not sleep where stars are hidden from sight
I hope you know what you are doing: if you
cannot be reached, I will not be left behind
loff, d=(8{>

(written in argument w/ some wendell berry text i can’t recall fifteen years later…)
we have no quarrel w/ th given names
yet must add to th list: we may regard
reality as indefinite rather than eternal
& thus th turning world endures

lavishing th care of form upon language
* or this world, & where th two may meet-
taxes out attention: our insight
what must be excluded from poetry
was not fixed & given to us
(we may approach poetry bringing shelter
or seeking it: others lay siege to it
or are made its hostage in turn)

if poetry is to preserve what might not- ever?- be then it must be about everything: a waterfall of everything,

if only under th full moon of every thing shining thru billowing veils of everything dropp’d over every other

beaver dam across everything…
th world is ours by default
:ever surrounded to be changed on sight
we have dammed th stream that it may flow for us
th forms of language & society wind tight about each other
as they catch a spark that blooms into light & heat (magic
& science both) before withering, dwindling to ashes
invested w/ our mortality & infused w/ yearning for infinity
th span of th structure ends but still bridges beyond
th measure of time to th foggy shore of another heartbeat
(:art not merely rationalising & justifying th limitations of individual perspective by constructing an

authorial ‘voice’ but making th exposure of such limitations meaningful by contextualising th contingency of an

artwork’s achievement or ’success’ as cultural production, gesturing towards this- ‘lack?’
embodied rather than represented in th work-
foregrounding aesthetics as ideology…?)
falmouth, cape cod 1983

(…)

(-& empty arms…

go’bless th deutsche sprache, in which ‘th moon’

is masculine: der mond- el luna? -el luno??

-& th sun is gendered femenine: die sonne, la sol!

lovely reversal of th conventional gender associations-

@ least for latin-derived, romance languages…)

el LUNO la SOL

le LUNE la SOLEIL

i can live with all this

gender confusion

it’s just one thing more to learn

what really sucks is

a moon who’s female and a sun

who has left HIS blackness

sharp like a sickle

drags the crescent moon

scarcely over summer’s horizon

and when she’s rising high

in a freezin’ winter night

she merely recalls my childhood’s nightmares

cold and malicious like a man

she spoils the pure adoration

of an innocent and starry night.

the SUN undoubtedly is the woman:

vital, round, and warm [lebensspendend, rund und warm]

and inaccessible.

==========================================================

only recently, when snow fell for the first time in five years,

i suddenly understood

why the sun is male down here:

with cruelty he destroyed

what the night had

tenderly sown

[grausam zerstörte sie

was die nacht

mit zarter hand gesät]

dead late city night. middle aged drugs in careful dosage

holding back on sin & redemption to deserve my stature-

th pure victim

form is not by default: we learn to choose

if slower than most

dead night, late city

careful victim holding back redemption drugs

careful sin in middle aged dosage

th pure stature

slower form if we choose to learn

my slower stature most pure to choose dead

holding slower sin by default

not back on most

form is not middle aged. we learn city victims

choose to default slower sin

we learn late, back in city stature

choose late & redemption (sleep of reason?

tight chest, no apologies) careful dosage

careful victim careful sin careful stature careful form

nyc, 1983?

(our story thus far:

some nice, moody fog patches off laguna tortuguero made me wish I’d gotten

off

th expreso sooner- saved fifty cents toll- & taken th road around th

western,

manatí side of th lagoon- I love fog…i’m just now beginning to realize

that @ some time,

th cibuco river estuary & mangrove forest were most likely joined by th

marshes in th area

(-& channels? drainage creeks?) to laguna tortuguero in one big network of

wetlands…)

if i remember right, this beachhouse was built either in ‘60 or ‘61- when i

was around six

or seven. to this day, dr.dad likes to brag about how he ‘made this house

w/ a mason,

a plumber, an electrician & two peons…’

before then, we spent a few summers in ‘la casa d abuela ana’ which @ some

point i remember

piling into to share w/ my cousins tate, eduard & analí…must have been

maybe that last

summer while our own future beach house was under construction, because i

remember having

a copy of ‘mad’ magazine in english…w/ a bonus cardboard record on which

‘alfred e. neuman’ belched his way through a rocknroll tune…were we all

really staying together? hmmm…

maybe we just hung out…? maybe it was a later summer while some further

work was being done closing up th ground floor, up to that point an open

terrace & a kitchen?

-during th cooler months, as we neared th end of our usual friday evening

ride from san juan,

my brothers & i wd be rousd out of our drowsy discomfort in th back seat of

dr.dad’s vw beetle

by th spectacle of gossamer strands of fog that wd swirl & pile into small

but thick banks…

my love of fog found a home on cape cod in th late fall & winter of ‘83.

i was head-over-heels (madly??) in love w/ a certain greek woman (daughter

of th former

head of th orthodox parish in queens) but otherwise pretty much burnt out

on nyc.

david rosenmiller, whom i knew from contact improvisation jams while

visiting boston, was

doing an internship @ th new alchemy institute, actually helping survey th

property in falmouth.

i probably owe what sanity i have learnd to hang on to, such as it may be,

to david’s

putting in a good word towards my working as a volunteer @ th alchemy farm.

one of- if not

*the* most healing, balancing experience in my life.

i began my volunteer stint as everybody did: shoveling manure & working on

th compost heaps

-was it steve tracy i was working under? i also helped spread mulching

straw, & generally

put th gardens to bed for winter…they were hard, those first couple of

weeks-

shedding my urban night owl habits, borrowing a rain slicker from one

housemate or another

as i headed out, late again, to join in th assigned tasks.

at first, i roomed w/ doug dahl, david rosenmiller & david lowell to become

david #3

under th roof of a summer cabin facing what i learnd was calld long pond.

doug was th only

other coffee drinker, & i crawled on my knees to him for my morning fix…

on slow days, i got a chance to hang around th house & informally count th

migrating

black duck population gathered on th pond while i tried to write poems to

seduce my love, christalia, away from th big, bad city.

(continuará…d=(8{>)

(some background:)

…when i was growing up, there used to be a grazing pasture under a

coconut grove where urbanización san demetrio- a suburban-type housing

development- now sits….

there was a small steep rise, hardly tall enough to merit being called a

hill, & behind it, hidden from th road & th shore, a small lagoon lay

nestled among marshes- one of th few natural bodies of fresh water in

puerto rico:

apart from a lagoon in guánica i only recently noticed in a road map &

about which i’d like

to find out more, to my knowledge, there’s only laguna tortuguero in manatí

(th neighboring

town to th west of here) & laguna cartagena between lajas & cabo rojo in th

southwest corner

of th island. (guánica is just east of lajas, actually.) laguna cartagena

was completely drained

as ‘insalubrious’ in th late ’40’s, its rich silt bed plowed into farmland

w/ dramatic consequences: th lagoon was an important nesting ground for

migratory birds & as a consequence of massive habitat destruction, bird

populations have been decimated, their migratory patterns severely

disrupted. recently, i have heard there is a movement afoot to try to undo

th damage

by refilling th lagoon…

in vega baja, th marshes- known as ‘pollales’ (poyales?) here- survive

behind th housing project, but th little hill was flattened right into th

lagoon…

i’m just now beginning to realize that @ some time, th cibuco river estuary

& mangrove forest were most likely joined by these marshes (-& channels?

natural drainage ditches?) to laguna tortuguero in one big wetlands

system…low-lying wetlands alternate w/ dunes of very fine white sand

throughout th area: sand gets carted away by th truckload for construction,

wetlands

are drained…laguna tortuguero, for example, has a drainage ditch which

empties by th well-known surf break @ los tubos beach. (also th site for th

notorious ‘mar & sol’ rock music festival back in ‘72.) i grew up thinking

this was a natural feature, but sometime ago found

out it was dug out by th army corps of engineers: there used to be an army

base right next to

th lagoon, camp tortuguero, & i imagine they might have built mostly on

landfill …

…i remember once walking from vega baja to th beach, deciding to go ‘off

road’-

(christalía had just gotten on th plane back to nyc after a difficult week-

i was desperately holding on to a dying, if not already dead, relationship)

i imagine i’d borrowed somebody’s car & had returned it, because i rode a

‘público’

out from san juan & started to walk, mostly out of impatience w/ waiting

for a local

‘pisicorre’ plying th route from th town to th beach…maybe a relative or

two

zoomed by w/out seeing me, fueling my feelings of abandonment & self-pity.

on th straightway between th curve after th caribe china factory & barrio

los naranjos- on th edge of th main creek or channel i believe drains th

wetlands

towards th cibuco river- a fairly wide dirt road opened to my left. i

thought,

why not cut across? (a suivre…)

Monday th 15, 02.1999 (01h56)

I must’ve taken th wrong road- again.

(I took a lot of wrong roads today- missd th de diego expressway exit onto

route 10, th new controversial ‘highway’ south from arecibo to utuado…

turnd back around & paid an extra 35 cents toll to get on it instead of

possibly

going on to camuy along th coast & driving down to lares by th eastern side

of

lake guajataca…

then i took 111 to lares instead of staying on route 10 to adjuntas because

it

seemd straighter & faster- wrong again! recurrent stretches of road

narrowed to

one flimsily guarded, winding lane by unrepaired land&mudslides…)

357 out of maricao- my destination, for th final day of th coffee harvest

festival, ‘el acabe dl café’- goes into 105, th panoramic route, & it’s

a solid half hour of roller coaster hairpin turns- to roll into mayagüez

soon

after midnight only to do a little unintended night tour as i momentarily

lost

my way across town to get onto highway 2…

pepe bermúdez, you must be one hell of a driver if you do this route in

just

under two hours! maybe th thing is to head south on 119 to san germán…?

-even doing 70- 75 from th moment I hit th expreso in hatillo, I only got

back

to vega baja about twenty to two…

some nice, moody fog patches off laguna tortuguero made me wish I’d gotten

off

th expreso sooner- saved fifty cents toll- & taken th little road around th

west,

manatí side of th lagoon- I love fog…(to be continued…)

Wednesday th 10, 02.1999 (23h12) mittwoch, midweek, miércoles/mercredi/mercoleddi? -mercury day? woden/wotan’s

day?)
Thursday-donnerstag: thunderday (jueves: jove’s day…) vendredi- jour de venus? freitag- freeday? sonnabend-

sunday’s eve- rainy days & mondays… time. time, time/see what’s become of me/ while i lookd around/for my

possibilities…
(& th sky/is a hazy shade of winter) -is my life over before it’s begun? i hear th crunch of approaching

wheels on th dirt road- nothing, nobody… no messages, no reply/no reply… what was it th white rabbit kept

saying? ‘i’m late!’? ‘i’m running late!’? time is short, pudgy, bald…tiene q ser la luna- it must be th

moon: selene is hidden tonight & hecate rampant spits dark madness over th land… closest to winter we come

in these latitudes is th february new moon, wild winds swirling as th cold fronts push south all th way from

hudson’s bay… rumors th mercury went down to somewhere below forty degrees in maricao last week…

EXT.: SHIP SURROUNDED BY ICE FLOES -TWILIGHT two men- BARON VON FRANKENSTEIN & SHIP’S CAPTAIN-

gesture angrily, argumentatively, on deck while th whistling wind brings th mingled sound of a distant, but

fast approaching voice, singing tunelessly, off:
(TH MONSTER)
i found my way to winter
where my heart could make a home
my black blood will fuel th fire
my white flame will dance alone

sown up out of magic meat-
i am free! i sing & stroke!
how long am i yet to live?
i dream children out of smoke

reach yr skygod, mother earth
while i, yr only burning bush
rootless roll across yr face-
play my curse out, aimless push

…loof, d=(8{>

(-& empty arms…

go’bless th deutsche sprache, in which ‘th moon’

is masculine:der mond- el luna? -el luno??

-& th sun is gendered femenine: die sonne, la sol!

lovely reversal of th conventional gender associations-

@ least for latin-derived, romance languages…)

(Wednesday th 17, 12.1997)

I can’t think or run away-

th road is louder than th radio

-this off-road time machine of mine

won’t hide th grey in th rearview-

th road is louder than th radio

(only christmas cards I get

are from brokerage house moneymen…

I’m nothing but a client- how much for

th little white lie of yr love?)

I can’t hide so I can’t stay-

there’s a full moon all over th world

-tv hosts in finland & france

beam us their gameshow reminders-

there’s a full moon all over th world

-shining brightly again on super bowl sunday, 1999-

& casting th clearest, sharpest moonshadows i ever remember

noticing…how bright was it? i went to take a leak

out in th yard & th stream of piss cast a shadow- *that*s how bright!

…earlier, as i began my run on th road to cibuco, i had an

unexpectedly clear view of th moon before it rose into th grey

line of clouds gathering just above th horizon-

a peachy-coral ball as big as th sun climbing out of th ocean…

…woke up on ground hog day (virgen d la candelaria bonfires in puerto

rico…)

to a giant swell jumping over th seawall, spraying up to th new second

story

windows…& th phone out…

a week has gone by already- th half moon boat floats up @ midnight-

need to plug into a phone line somewhere to post this- san juan- caparra?

luv, d=(8{>

(ayianito: peddona te inunde tanto el hardraiv- mi last dialogue con paco boyer incluye joyitas para inspiración lit&creativa;, ideas re.:pretensiones culturales d/para mi diario d peregrino…d=(8{>)
Frank Boyer, INTERNET: fboyer@netstep.net
Date: Die, 05. Jan 1999 11:33:23 PM

Messex written by Foyer
“fra minehole project of my dissert a ton, tying to come a way of doing it that doesn’t make me sick unto death.
* yikes! get thee th healing balm of gilead & lead me on a pilgrimage there… drifts deter generic placement starting to reflect on mi nancy those reflections seem to me to be gin to coal to form.
* funny, you had a comment (criticism?) a while back about dates & tying my musings to th specific- to th strictly anecdotic- & i bristld @ first, but learnd from it- it’s a tightrope (th tightrope of all art???) because i tend to use th anecdote to ground a tendency to fly into discursive abstraction that clots up there

in th ether & often comes crashing down like so much pretentious flying pig shit… anyway, glad you enjoy my process…hope you find a way to leaven/lighten yr own…
As Kerouac once wrote, “What you feel will find its own form.”
* oh, yes, ‘ti jean! thanx for that quote!
Have you read Bruce Chatwin.
* yup, some- got an anthology of shorter articles here…
You know that Cain was a wanderer. Take a look at Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and Cain, both by good ol’ boy Byron.”
* know what i started (re)reading (never finishd it th 1st time)? weber’s ‘protestant ethic & th spirit of capitalism’: have vague ideas about trying to focus my online travel diary (if -) on/as a journey tracing luther- reform- central europe towards th west- middle ages- catholicism &c; &c…; meanwhile looking @ th first effects of th monetary unification of europe… true imperialism of centralising capital…blahblah… good ol’(bad)boy byron wd be a luvly change of pace…i’ll have to shop for it…
————— End rig in a Mess ————
loof, d=(8{>