one scale of intimacy

vision

open my eyes, dear sir.
I mean not to be blind.

open my eyes, dear ma'am.
what I see shows where I have been,
not what I seek to know.

open my eyes, dear sir.
my blindness is not where I end.

open my eyes, dear ma'am.
share with me what I may not see.

a beginning to the bird boy

this was written two years ago for a University of Iowa summer writers' assignment. the beginnings to posts that later inspired this and this.

- - - - -

He belongs to the earliest family in the region of Tall, Steep Hills. His family existed before history was created -- before people walked on two legs, before the wheel. Their time and history was told relative to everything else. Visitors to the town at the base of Tall, Steep Hills would inquire about the age of the family. All would answer, "Longer than any of the other families; history didn't exist when they began. All we know is one true descendent remains. It is he who lives on top of the Tall, Steep Hills.”

The base of his particular tall, steep hill is suffocated with bushes and brambles of the fastest growing genus around. He lives above the tree line. Every day he fights through the forest with his skinny arms extended in protection of his face; and every evening he returns to the once again overgrown pathways. 

Years before today, his fellow inhabitants of Tall, Steep Hills grew tired of daily commute and compromises with the branches and thorns. They retreated below the tree line to the outskirts of town. But he -- he stayed in the Tall, Steep Hills.

As they left, he watched the once frequented footpaths become engulfed and overgrown with brambles and bushes. What once took him mere minutes to walk through, now requires hours. Yet he remains. Believing that if he stays, he may find the history of his long deceased family and their stories.

Each day as he heads into town the townspeople whisper.

"There he is."

"There he is."

"The one that lives on top of the tall, steep hill."

"The one who waddles even though skinny and lanky."

"The one who's family was once so great and magnificent."

Someone once told him his family was a rare group -- descended from those rumored to travel not by foot but by feather.  His family helped create history to record the stories and lessons of time. And they said, he retains the traits of his family -- built with two measly legs and thin bony arms, now balding from his fights with the forest. Arms that once displayed the most beautiful feathers.

re: the alchemy of sound

moments later, the great elsa kim responds to the alchemy of sound with a typewritered sound poem.

alchemy of sound

tUnE-YaRdS' Merrill Garbus on sounds and lyrics....

On the other hand, I believe in a magic that happens in sound. When you go back to how language was originally formed, I really do think that a lot of it must have had to do with sound and which sounds sounded like the thing you were talking about. I tend to rely heavily on that kind of alchemy, where if I just start with a sound, then the right words will appear, and that something – if you wrote it out in a sentence would be nonsense – evokes far more to people than a more correct sounding sentence.

That’s no revolutionary idea on my part, but sound is my way of accessing that magical abstract language that can hit me in poets like Cummings or Joyce. People who are writing in a channeled kind of way. Gertrude Stein. You sort of go, “what??” but something about it really hits you as a human, the way the words are put together, the choice of words.

 The rest of the interview can be found at The Rumpus. Here's a link.