.: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{>)