4/18/11

failure

failure

what is failure, anyways?

something not working the way it was planned or intended to . . . .
something that's lost its way, that's wandered off course and found itself not in Kansas anymore.

something that's lost its intention and found itself coming apart at the seams.

something that has changed.

failure is when the knowledge of a projected future for the thing has been voided in some way.

failure is truth ac.know.ledging that it doesn't know anymore.

i defend the failure.
it has failed in doing what it meant to do, and when it has lost what it meant, it becomes open to more than it ever meant to do.

a blank slate. a fresh start, and no promises for the future this time.

4/15/11

to get free

Walk at least 3 hundred yards. Walk two steps forward saying, "I am me and I am free." Take one step back saying "I feel the chaos." Continue this and eventually the step back or the words of the step back will fall away.

4/2/11

new life

a day free of obligations:
16 hours of pure
fucking

around.
i am feeling expansive,
so i blend up a banana
lie back in bed
think about smoking a cigarette
don't smoke a cigarette
because i quit 3 years ago,
for my health
and the planet
and the cats.
the cats are all gone now
but the gold satin comforter
is still destroyed and
under my bathrobe
while the pool smiles a
blue smile
winking
through the patio doors.
ac 62 degrees,
sweet freon smell
i open my thighs to
the cool thoughts of
eleven am.
don't forget,
a voice on the
stupid plastic
this cellphone is prepaid
so i throw it
and it slides into chlorine
with a minimal sound
casual and violent
and it pleases me
just like
the thought
that wherever
i place my hat,
that is where
i am at.
didn't you know
i have a hat, now
and a lot of other things, too,
cindy,
since you left me.

(2011)



i guess i'm writing poetry again. i dont really know what else to do. most of it will be here: http://alexandraleon.tumblr.com/

or maybe I will make a new blog for it. blogs like babies since i don't have babies.

4/1/11

"Backbone", by David Foster Wallace

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2011/03/07/110307fi_fiction_wallace

are you alone?

"Fiction is one of the few experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved. Drugs, movies where stuff blows up, loud parties -- all these chase away loneliness by making me forget my name's Dave and I live in a one-by-one box of bone no other party can penetrate or know. Fiction, poetry, music, really deep serious sex, and, in various ways, religion -- these are the places (for me) where loneliness is countenanced, stared down, transfigured, treated."
— David Foster Wallace


an endless stream of distractions--we all need distractions--otherwise.

otherwise.


otherwise.

3/30/11

love itself have rest

We'll go no more a-roving
by George Gordon Byron

SO, we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.

No sweet thing left to savour, no sad thing left to fear

We'll Go No More a-Roving
by William Ernest Henley

We'll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon.
November glooms are barren beside the dusk of June.
The summer flowers are faded, the summer thoughts are sere.
We'll go no more a-roving, lest worse befall, my dear.

We'll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon.
The song we sang rings hollow, and heavy runs the tune.
Glad ways and words remembered would shame the wretched year.
We'll go no more a-roving, nor dream we did, my dear.

We'll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon.
If yet we walk together, we need not shun the moon.
No sweet thing left to savour, no sad thing left to fear,
We'll go no more a-roving, but weep at home, my dear.

3/24/11

close the door




3/16/11

lakehurst, new jersey

everyone talks about disaster
in retrospect
a spine tingle tine spingle
i knew it was coming
my grandmother knew it was coming
her grandmother knew it was coming
and yet
we sleep but never soundly
and forget our dreams, a sphere walking with
dreams dead to silence.

the great eye of history never closes
blazing as it does above every quiet town
and the skies continue to pour fire
while the bodies of the earth turn
restlessly underneath,
radiant light flickering on our eyelids.

the tide comes in, the tide goes away


destroyer-bay of pigs

i think about you often
off in the desert
laughing your head off
in the forest of the night;
say a prayer for the
light.