lucid wanderdreams

sunday night's dreams:

i dreamed of being in france. there was a small house. well maybe not so small, more like an old house converted into three units. it was on a large field sort of property. no trees to be seen...

i dreamed of going into a bank with the intent of robbing it but the pretty teller only laughed at the idea and cashed a check for $14.23 instead. but why did she give me dollars when i was in france? i'm such a pushover for a pretty woman. or maybe it was because she was a redhead.

it is now tuesday morning at 4am and i find myself sleepless yet relaxed. i have turned into a vampire, being active at night in these last weeks. my mind is so much more alert when the rest of the world is asleep. peaceful. i leave the cacophony of diurnal life to others.

i've been dreaming of france a lot. the homeland calls to me. the other night, i had a dream that i was there but trying to order sushi in french and it was not going well then thought, what the hell am i doing trying to order sushi while in france? bring on the foie gras!

over there

over there
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

something for Magda...

Greater Than (2006)

In the last stretches of abuse,
she searches for sources of good and evil.
a long journey across the world
looking for clues of something bigger.

“Greater than you, that will save you,”
they said with insistence.

“You will find comfort in His presence...”
She makes it to the eastern peak,
trudges up Dong Shan, stands on granite shingles
atop the roof of the world.

She looked for something greater,
searched in earnest for something to fix her,
save her, comfort her like the scent
of a familiar bed, a familiar nest.

Conversations on a mountain peak
with a God she can’t see. Months pass;
fatefully, the only presence on the lonely shrine
is an expression, culmination of all she is.

The only God that exists has been on the inside.
All the good, evil, actions and
consequences in her existence were simply
results of her mind, thought and consciousness.

She lights the match, touches the paper
for moments she is reminded of a passage
by Bradbury and then she frees the book;
lit pages flutter away finding new freedom.

You

you
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

You are the whole building on fire.
You are the voice of sirens. You are
the dumb crowd milling, the capture
of Weegee’s lens. You are flames
licking up the escape. You're the hovering
of a mother at the cliff of her window ledge.
You are the choice to drop her baby.
You're the chance of a beckoning crowd,
six hands gripping a sooty raincoat. You
are the only option. You're a simple drop.
Ten stories below they pray you're like a cloud,
soft floating. You are like a cloud. Grey
and you don't hold anything. You are
that moment before a falling, the falling,
a whir of falling, wail of falling, the sweet
thud. You are black blood flaring
across the concrete. You are a needle
to the groove of a very sad song.
The whole building burns with you.

– Sandra Beasley

moi

moi
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

is that the look of innocence or intent?!

c. 1967. i started scanning in some old photos that my nanny sent to her grand-daughter from vietnam. more to come...

in the eye of his spit

or the spit in his eye...

this afternoon, i had a rather interesting observation of behaviour. while sitting at a bench waiting for my bus to arrive, there was a 15-16 kid (male) sitting next to me dressed in passé below the crotch baggy jeans, three times oversized t-shirt, white sneakers, etc...but it wasn't that. really it was not the dumb uniform that got my attention.

it was his spitting behaviour. being someone who watches animal behaviour, i wondered how often he spits for no reason because quite clearly he was no archer fish. he was too fat anyway, would have sunk and got stuck in the mangrove roots but i digress. in a span of 90 seconds, he managed to spit over seven times in slightly different locations. it made a rough arc. now it wasn't like he was chewing tobacco or anything, it was just a thing to do. who knows, in his mind, it might even have been cool. anyway, i tried very hard to watch and not interact. i even turned up the volume of my ipod to some rather menacing tune by the black angels. and there were three moments where i looked at the thick saddle leather shoulder strap of my filson bag and visualized how nice of a cravat i could make around his neck to stop the disgusting behaviour...but i didn't. it was only a passing fantasy. something i wouldn't ever actually do [?] hahahah...

anyway, i looked up at the changing of the sky and decided that it was going to be a nice sunset. and there was no latent agression. i was just looking forward to getting home and having dinner...

heaven's cloth

heaven's cloth
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

something for Kelley...

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

–William Butler Yeats

pomodoro

sometimes i go looking for a new siren to occupy the vacant space of the warehouses of my heart. i'm looking for that new voice. the siren that will call the monsters back to sea, the muse that will make a song olympian and a verse that would make proust turn.

sometimes you have to think grand, not the grand of louis but the grand of elvis. and so sometimes you end up with gazpacho when you meant marinara; on either of the wrong end of the pomme d'amour spectrum.

oh well, sometimes it is just sauce...

(daphne) blue girl

(daphne) blue girl
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

she is blue today.

daphne blue, because that was the color of ink i reached for of the selection sitting on my desk in front of me.

today, she is simplified.

she needs no cross hatching or strands of hair delineated.
today she is a verse of a poem, distilled and condensed.

and the depths of her need go any deeper than her hue...

Crush in the Ghetto

I'm floating with the birds
I'm talking to the weeds
Look what you've done to me

I'm still dressed up from the night before
Silken hose and an old Parisian coat
And I feel like a queen at the bus stop on the street
Look what you've done to me

It's a beautiful morning in the ghetto
Finer than the day before
The ants are crawling over my pants as if to say
They know where the honey is

There's really old roses blooming in the ghetto
Birds of paradise are taller than me
The weeds grow high, the birds flicker by
Children are walking to school

In the midst of all of this profusion
The bus pulls up to take me back home
The bus driver looks like an African prince
The babies have tears in their eyes

And I feel like a queen
On this sunny city bus
Look what you've done to me

– Jolie Holland

from the outside

from the outside
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

sometimes the view is from the outside. an outward station looking for a perspective; a perspective of the inside. but how often can one illustrate from the skin what goes on beneath the epidermis, beneath the vascular tissue, below the lipids and smooth muscle what we imagine to feel that is our insides experiencing emotions where we thought we didn't have any nerve cells?

we are creatures designed to explore the outside, the external environment. when we are aimed inward, most of the time we lose our way. who makes a GPS device to tell us where we are and how the map the cities of the interior? can those places, those feeling be put on any map, really?

perhaps we only get glimpses, like what was once a beautiful plant on the window sill that is now withering. can we tell from the outside that it has been dried out, left to die by mistake or on or with purpose? and if so, what does that mean? self induced atrophy? is that the bars on the outside that is meant to protect? is it?

spidery arms

spidery arms
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

it had been a very long time since i'd visited these trees. probably at least 20 years or so.

yea, a long time between visits for people. but for the trees, it must have been afternoon tea. it makes you look at things differently. i looked at the cross section of one sequoia that is around 2000+ years old. it is interesting to see milestones in terms of human history against its rings. while we were figuring out the printing press, the tree was in its adolescence...

yea, perspective...

to float

so you go on and on and on

that is the point, you don't lose the path
you don't lose the river,
it is the path of least resistance

are you floating?
are you drifting?

what if you are just a solar flare
one of those things that sparkle
in my eyes and in the half moment

in the universe
the dream of the
GUT scientist

drifts away...
melds away...

then you look back
then you see the eyes
the dark in midst of light

then the mirror breaks.

doubt and curiosity

doubt and curiosity
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

or is it curiosity and then, doubt?

ROUGH GUIDE
by George Szirtes

"Your image destroys itself, remakes itself, and is never weary."
– Octavio Paz, The Prisoner

Impossible to look directly into
another’s eyes. Impossible to look
into your own. You read the dense book
of being like a document you flick through.

Eyes, even an inch apart, are blurs,
clouds, like the concept of yesterday
which has an entity you sometimes stray
into beyond the limits of his and hers,

The unknown: the roughest of the rough guides,
and all it says is: you’re here, you’d better make
the best of it. You entered by mistake
and so you’ll leave. It’s what the route map hides

and languages obscure, the magnetic pull
of all you ever see of the beautiful.

-----

But I have seen the beautiful. I know
its contours and the rough guide it provides
is blissfully specific: the hand that rides
the ridge of the collarbone or moves along the brow,

the perfect form of momentary light
in this line or another. It’s what Blake
saw at the top of the stair, the terrible earthquake
at the root of the flesh we think of as delight.

It’s what you see when you shut your eyes and see,
the angel with the whip or a flaming sword
that burns your eyes down to the spinal cord,
the shit, blood, semen smell of mortality

you get used to because it follows you
everywhere and is both beautiful and true.

medusa as a young girl

medusa as a young girl
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

i love this poem. just haven't had a fitting image to go with it til now.

she sprouted from my head like the serpents in her mind...

Arms of the Snake

Because she has no arms,
she embraces him with her body,
crawls the distance of his flesh
like a light-starved vine.

Because she has no legs,
she coils through his thoughts,
like a root or a shadow
growing wild in his mind.

Because she has no words,
her tongue splits in anger.
She hisses in the dark,
shakes a rattle in his face.

Because he has no choice,
he bears both fang and kiss,
comes to crave her silver tourniquet,
savor venom in his veins.

Because she has no heart,
she sheds her skin to depart.
She exits through his fingers,
leaving only her empty sleeve.

– CHRISTINE BOYKA KLUGE

twilight

twilight
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

The Grasp

There are moments of twilight
Between wakefulness and slumber

A space and time which neither
Reality nor Reverie truly reign

That comes the most relevant objects
Of origin that shapes what the mind

Thinks and what the soul senses
And being in a hollow shell

One can only wonder
In the expanse of experience

And memory why one hangs onto
One thing and releases another

(2003)

repose

repose
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

THE WASTELAND. TS ELIOT.

Part One: The Burial of the Dead.

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for n hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
                          Frisch weht der Wind
                               Der Heimat zu
                             Mein Irisch Kind,
                             Wo weilest du?
‘You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
They called me the hyacinth girl,’
-Yet when we came back, late, from the hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence,
Oed’und leer das Meer.

Madam Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

Unreal city,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sigh, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where St Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying” ‘Stetson!
‘You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
O keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
You! Hypocrite lecteur!- mon semblable, -mon frere!’

In Sepia

in sepia
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

I have dark eyes.

I know I'm looking into the sun when these irises look brown, washed out, becoming more transparent than the imaginary walls that have taken years to build.

Walls you can't see but are more stout than the ones crossing China...

the kitchen entrance

the kitchen entrance
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

well don't just stand there staring. open the door and see what you find...

objects

objects
we spend our lives in dark places,
in storage, in waiting
for special moments
christmas day or an anniversary

we come into view,
proud of what we are
endeared with enough care
to be passed among hands
a gift, a souvenir

in bright times
we leave impressions
lasting generations
a chance at transcendence
to new hands, new hearts

but in the lay of time
we are mostly just things
untouched, unheld,
staying inanimate, cold
not a velveteen rabbit
not a warm hobby horse

yet we have moments
when with velvet and wood
blood is caused to stir
giving pulse and rhythm

Matias I (2004)

Black as black is the night
Dark in a manner that stays without fright

He only betrays his colour when in sunlight
Even I show my red under those rays

Though unlike him I find no peace
When I slumber curled like a nautilus

soundtrack (2005)

fallen bells from jacaranda
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

previously posted without image

the soundtrack of my life
is found among
the littered remains of fallen angels

there is a melody out there
that i will recognize among
the dirty feathers of the flightless

there are images on a silver screen
the film that tries to graph a life
seems somehow awkward and familiar

there are faces i’ve seen before
only on ghostly backlit screens
their lips move in sync without meaning

the score is made of melodies to remember
but i have problems matching it
to the right scenarios

the music has a voice i know
i just can’t seem to place the face
the correct association
seems lost among the broken notes