other ways of being in community

how about a catalogue of other ways of being in community, partially hidden ways. like ways that pass through you temporarily, and aren’t crisis really, but are some other kind of relationship to the world that is a little out of this world.

ghost like is when you’re not really connecting with others and you’re recceeding from community. 3 times is a charm, like in baseball. you see someone you’ve had affection for (in whatever way) and yet you don’t go over to them and make that reconnection. you let it pass. after the third time, like Jesus said to Peter (or whomever?) its too late and now theres this incomprehensible distance between you two. maybe you’ll be able to make up for it later but some part of yourself and their self has let go of the energy passing through and you’re a bit like strangers. you’re a ghost, and they're a ghost to you.

of course they don’t want to be a ghost, so really they might lash out at you, to others, diss you. or even just talk about you in a different voice, with a different kind of respect and comittment. anyway, it speaks to the requirement we have to the “community” and our relationship to that requirement. paranoia is a worry about work i should be doing.

some people of course, relish the ghostness, pass through community unknown - for really, how much can we really know each other. we’re not going to go asking everyone for details about our upbringing at the drop of a hat, - happy childhood, cruel father, first love, what was your middle school like?

and indeed, as we get older, do we accept the ghost station, because well - we’ve been through so many phases that we’re losing track. they run together. there’ve been successes and failures. the “community”  itself has changed over like 14 times, its a roiling surface of boiling water getting ready for another pot of Brexit black tea. (Britian will get back in with Europe, they have two more chances to get it right, or do they really want to be ghost english? come to think of it it is rather gloomy on those endless moors.)

so a community, in the city life, is a scene of ghosts struggling to obtain some kind of substance, some kind of temporary, but endlessly deep flesh of bodiness. Perhaps made more real by actual human touch, hugs, a hand on the arm, or conversely a song sung together, or just the music of conversation that rings out in rythm.
like when a bird was singing at me through the window yesterday morning while i was washing dishes. so intent, its throat bulging in and out, tweeter eet awheeeta otto itta itta itta itta eeeetttt! It went on for like 10 minutes, looking at me, craning its head one way and then the other and i tried to whistle back but actually could’t really keep up. Made my day, though, sweet thing.
next episode, vampires redeemed.

How to Go Outside Your House

leaving means no

otherwise known as

Going Outside is Like Taking A Breath

going outside of your house means reassuring yourself that you can say no to someone, to anyone. you can maintain the soveriegnty of your body, your “three foot space” as I used to explain it to my kids: “Everybody has a right to their 3’ space."

but what that means is "NO!!!"

being able to feel in the heart of your soul that you can say NO!!!! anytime you want to. That you have a process for deciding, for being involved and processing and learning while experiencing in the outside world.

Nancy Reagun ruined that word for me back in the early 80’s. Masquerading as an innocent grandmother, though conservative, whose words we could just brush off in squalid imatation of Ronald’s teflon coat, she said “Just Say No!” and so of course we said Yes to anything we wanted to say yes to. For me: Anarchism (and I’m still wholehearted about that) and art, and music and work (DIY), and swearing whenever I wanted to swear, and occasional (but not too often) lost midnight affairs.

however, in this double switch back, the evil witch Nancy Reagun performed, like a secret assassin's knife to the heart of public discourse, “Just Say No!” and ruined it forever for many a soul. John Ehrlichman recently acknowledged that Nixon enacted the War on Drugs as a direct assault against the hippies and the blacks, and a growing rottten spot was created within the apple of democracy that ‘America’ is supposed to be. Now we see it flailing as the European Union falls apart, the Enlightenment project is sinking and Kontrol/Kaos is winning over poor Max Smart. His shoe is ringing and no one is answering.

overdoses are at an all-time high. Nancy was wrong.

and i’m saying ‘harm reduction’ philosophy is the way to go. Check it out. Look it up on Wikipedia.

harm reduction means to allow freedom of choice for the addicted but try to help them in any way you can help them. as they get stronger they may be able to make better choices for their selves. Harm Reduction does not use abstinence as a weapon.

and for your own bad self, just say no to whatever you need to say no to.

i’ve noticed that when I'm in a place which is not my home, the breath is interesting. In order for me to find myself in the order of speaking, I line up my breath with other people's. And there are only certain thoughts that occur to me within the rhythm of the breathing. Certain kinds of thoughts pop in when I am in-breathing and certain kinds of thoughts pop out when I am out-breathing. This is the nature of dialectalism, and also why certain people (lol) get into irretrievable arguements, the rhythm drags them along, and a spiral occurs. A maelstrom occurs (one of the coolest readings in Poe, btw), and your breath has become a response to the essence (you think) of their out breath. And their response to you is this same fire fighting fire, dragons alive! kind of engagement. The rules of engagement themselves have caught fire! AAAAhhh Fire!!

So perhaps this is what is meant by people when they say “I can’t breathe!” Or chant it. Or put it on signs at demonstrations. Perhaps they are meaning they don’t want the in-breath because it contains rules of engagement of which they are not interested in being a part. Then there is no breath available!!

Even to discuss this is to walk on a razor’s edge of pain in the working life. Or should I risk it all, and say: to talk about this is to feel a trigger's pull against my finger?

Take another breath, Wattles!

In that photo of Abraham Lincoln, I wonder at which part of his breath was he located? Or did a person have to hold their breath when getting photographed in 1865 due to slow exposures?

i'm thinking that being able to say "No" to the world occurs before I am able to say "Yes". Isn't this a phase that toddlers go through?

big enough to swim in

self in reverse

self made in Amerikkka

whispering, i'm down to . . . 

sick woman theory and de-persons theory

http://gutsmagazine.ca/issue-six/in

bad poetry . . . is it better than non-poetry

     hard to tell if good or

     bad, in poetry all the

     lines are blurred,

     could be one good line,

     makes me want to make

     it longer, full context,

     compare it to language

     soup, big enough for 

     sharks in there,

     big enough to swim in . . . 

     big enough to drown

is there air in poetry -

     or above it?!

looking for flatness or in it..

in it!

Poetry Gone Wild

Poetry Gone Wild

        you swoop through facebook on a hawk’s wing

     i beg for words from the wise

i want to put it in the back door

     so you’ll know when you’re done on facebook

that it’s personal it’s a take it’s a given

          it’ll never ever be the same not tall enough

     not long enough not dreamy enough not on time

so I said it’s personal and you’re big

     enough now it wants a taste of that french fry

in a dream late last night over at McDonalds

          don’t make it personal don’t cry big boys

     are the long slender words of poetry gone

wild through facebook and twitter - three

     gmail accounts and its still not enough

to disappear into the flesh of it

          i wanted to know compared to what

     and so reading alice in wonderland

i wanted to be both larger and smaller

     to be her no sex necessary

by becoming that which has power and not

          how can i put it in words when the size

     keeps changing and only skins remain the same

and indeed! we’re animals all after all and

     unless we’re queens and kings or

pawns and rooks “off with their heads!"

     rings through all time so loudly