End Of Year

Dear Jen Larson,
You are the most amazing person I have met all year, thank you.

Dear Jordan Stacey,
Your letter meant more to me than anything else I have recieved all year, thank you.

Dear Neil,
I am glad we made out.

Dear Logan Barren,
Thanks for loving my artwork, I love your band just a little more though.

Dear N.H.,
I hate that I hate you, please appologize or let me beat you up.

Dear Sam Locke and Mike Short,
Thanks for AIMing with me about dorky stuff.

Dear Jerks,
Stop being a-holes, please?

Richard Serra

Andrew Brant and I sat together. When I say sat together I do not mean side by side, but simply that we inhabited the same room, sharing oxygen and ideas, for the evening. He and I talked a lot about literature and philosophy as well as some art history. When the subject of “What is art?” arose, as it often does among those of us in our late teens to early nineties, I told him that I believed all of experience is art for art is the education and educating of ones self and/or others. He said he didn’t agree, I said I just wasn’t expressing my ideas clearly enough.
Then language and understanding entered the arena of our conversation.

When looking at Richard Serra’s Circuit II there is a point at which you can face a corner of the room and have a lead plank slice straight through the center of your line of vision, hiding in a blind spot. Your eye is forced to see two identical halves of a corner, but one is in shadow the other in light. I discovered this while slowly moving in and around the Serra sculptures at MoMA taking in the feelings and ideas that each presented to me, while occasionally looking up at my grandmother, pitying her slightly.

On the car ride to the museum my grandma and I had a conversation about Serra. “There used to be a garden, where your grandfather used to eat lunch and it was a beautiful space,” she had begun to say with a sharp crackling voice, “I loved the space. Then one day suddenly there was this giant squiggle in the middle of the courtyard. There was such a hooplah about it and people protested it, so it was taken down. Now you know about Frank Gehry’s Bilbao in Spain right? Well in that space it is impossible to put art in, but Gehry said ‘People will build pieces to fit my space’ or something like that. Then when I go into the Bilbao I see the Richard Serra sculpture from those gardens.”

A security guard asked me to not touch the sculptures, because from his vantage point it looked as if I was running my hand across the sides of the giant Band, but the truth was my hand was 4 inches from the sculpture simply running parallel to Serra’s mass. His misunderstanding of the situation amused me.

Andrew pulled out a pair of pliers he had been using to solder the wires of his bass guitar. “Let’s look at this pair of pliers and try to describe them. They are made of two parts that meet together at a screw. The top half opens and closes in correlation with the bottom half. They are made from a grey metal with a red rubber coating the bottom legs. There is a molecular structure of the metal that these pliers are made of. We could point out the fact that these pliers were given to me by my father when I was fifteen; that I have used them for almost every project I have needed pliers for since; that these pliers survived a tornado that destroyed my home the same day my grandfather died. We could go on and on about these pliers, but we have whittled it down to a single word, pliers. I can simply say, ‘hand me the pliers’ and you know what I want you to do.”

“Richard Serra, I’m not really a fan,” my Grandma said, I told her I was.

“Now an artist,” Andrew continued, “is able to take things as simple as words and images and convey entire experiences. I can see how education is learning the word pliers.”

Fighting and Fight Club

Hey here are two poems, the first one I wrote by taking quotes from the prologue to fightclub and re-arranging them to not be about fight club...the second one I just wrote, so feedback is encouraged, and is also a sorta agressive poem.

And Then The 4-H clubs in Virginia Prohibited Mormon Law

Think of a kind of glue
or mortar
That would hold together
a mosaic
of details and moments
...The beginning

in the beginning they were
just
blue-collared nobodies living
in Oregon

with only a public school education
these students decided that

“there is nothing that a
blue collared nobody
in Oregon, with a public school
education can imagine that people
haven’t already
done.”

and then

they fought for individuality:
shirtless and black eyed,
bloodied and bandaged

walk down the street howling into the night
praying they had finally found themselves

to challenge someone is
to compete with the espresso machine
to compete with ESPN
to beat Citizen Kane
to beat six million dollars

magazine and newspaper
editors
Started Calling them
Radio interviewers
asked
“Tell me the truth”

The Truth is that
the faceless
nameless
reporters
create the framework
for telling any
story

the important part of this story
is that the important part
…wasn’t important

then
suddenly the world featured an expose
on
old ladies, political, cartoons, and
neutral sorbet.

people called the students
too dark
too violent
too strident
shrill...and
dogmatic

they walked down the street
grinning,
bruised faces

The 4-h clubs in Virginia were busted
they had Prohibited Mormon Law
Everyone forgot about Oregon

the students had fought tooth and nail for this
they’d get drunk and ask each-other

“Is there nothing a blue-
collared nobody living in
Oregon with a public school
education can imagine that people
haven’t already done?”

then they were exhausted.
Tired isn’t the same,
but a majority of the time its close enough.

Devil Poem

I raise my knife to the devil’s neck
wanting to slit
its delicate structure

inhale

I do not look at his face, but it is reflected
in the blade
his cheekbones slitting my heart

exhale

Is this anger I feel
are answers to questions
really what i want

inhale

I can’t let go
but i can’t stab
i’m stuck

exhale

quivering voice,
steaming tears streaming,
he is seemingly unchanged
yet aware

sly little devil, I can’t breathe

Lets start off with 3 poems about lust/obsession:

Lust Poem, open paren, true feelings, close paren

I wish you would want me, even if it was out of hate
Because knowing you think about me would be great
Because you are the reason every single day I masturbate

This is a poem without symbolism or meaning
It is just written from some id type feelings

This is a poem without symbolism or meaning
It is just written from my labido’s feelings

This is a poem without symbolism or meaning
It is just written from my truest feelings

When I think about you I filp my tongue around
And bite real hard down
In order to keep my knees from hitting the ground

Cuz

This is a poem without symbolism or meaning
It is just written from some id type feelings

This is a poem without symbolism or meaning
It is just written from my labido’s feelings

This is a poem without symbolism or meaning
It is just written from my truest feelings

I wish you would want me like Pamela Anderson or some other hot chick
Because I want to do the things to you that you think about
When you’re controlled by your dick

I want to suck it down, I want to suck it dry
I want to let you stick a hot poker into my thigh

I want you to slowly shove it in my ass,
I want to let you do whatever you want
No matter how crass

Cuz you’re the one that makes my cunt slowly quiver
You’re the one that makes me flow like a river

Although it would be nice to come less like rivers
And more like tributaries
I won’t really pout if you don’t eat me out,
The truth is all I want is for you to pop
Every one of my cherries

Cuz

This is a poem without symbolism or meaning
It is just written from some id type feelings

This is a poem without symbolism or meaning
It is just written from my labido’s feelings

This is a poem without symbolism or meaning
It is just written from my truest feelings

If I Told You

If I told you, you would say “She is crazy”
But the truth is I am not crazy
I am just a loyal dog
Like your dogs

If I were only to be one of your dogs
To lay at the foot of your bed
To fetch your shoes
To lick your hand

I would cherish every time you sat on the couch with me
Every time you walked me
Every time you fed me
Every time you pet me

If I were only to be one of your dogs
To be pet by your many friends
To walk in your neighborhood
To eat from your garden

If I were only to be one of the vegetables in your garden
To have you prepare me
To have you serve me
To have you eat me

I would cherish having roots in your garden
Having my seeds replenish your garden
Having my fruits pleasure your guests
Having my fruits pleasure you

Oh to be a fruit in the bowl in your house
To be one of your tropic pineapples
To be one of your sweet oranges
To be one of your tart apples

To be sliced by your silver blade
To be put into your little bowl
To be chilled in your cooler
To be held in a zip-lock bag

Oh to be a zip-lock container in your backpack
To keep tight your homegrown blueberries
Smearing your Cinnabon Minnibon icing
To hold your Cozy’ turkey burger

To be the keeper of your peanut butter n’ cheese sandwich
To stick to the sides of your Café Mogador Pancakes
To be the bearer of your sandwich and cookie
To hold a series of cucumbers you sliced with a knife

Oh to be your knife
To have my shaft held gently by your bony hands
To have you dig me, drive me into your celery
To reflect the side of your arm as you slice a bagel

To spread your jam on a toasted piece of rye
To slice your cake in a time of celebration
To protect you from harm when in danger
And to sometimes cut your hand and leave a scar

Oh if I were only your masculine boyish scar
I gave you amnesia when you were 25
You got me skateboarding on 23rd
I am underneath your chin

To be a line on your body
To be seen by others
To be known by you
To be part of you

To be “Hot Lips” on M*A*S*H for you
To be the slave to your master
To be a monkey chandelier
To be something you love

If I told you

If I told you, you would say “But, I don’t know you”
The truth is, I know you
I don’t care if you know me
I am just a loyal dog

LISTS
Lists, what I love
Not myself

Lists, what I hate
Not you

Lists, what I eat
Cheese

Lists, what I want
You, every day, just you