caryatids

you buy a weapon

and you drive a weapon

and you pray a weapon

and you breathe a weapon

hot august night: update!

6 Gallery Press presents:
hot august night

14 poets, $5
modernformations gallery
4919 penn ave
this saturday, august 29

One reader had been removed, and two more added to the lineup.
Red Bob won't be reading, but Davka and Matt Wellins will!

So the new lineup:

Kevin Finn
Nikki Allen
Jessica Fenlon
Jerome Crooks
Renée Alberts
Jonathan Loucks
Ed Steck
Don Wentworth
Michael S. Begnal
Che Elias
Bill Hughes
Alexi Morrissey
Billie Steigerwald
Davka
Matt Wellins

time lapse still life

i love time lapse, stop motion, watching plants move with animal intelligence in every direction: rootward, skyward, nodding east to west, east to west.

This is a bouquet i made for Chris for his birthday, all of flowers from our yard, wild ones and ones i grew: honeysuckle, bittersweet nightshade, weed foliage, zinnia, a mysterious stowaway white-flowered plant that's spreading through the garden, blossoming mint, bolted oregano, everlasting pea...

happy birthday, love.


watch the wind blow the sun through:

Turbulent by Shirin Neshat

A few years ago, i saw the video work Turbulent by controversial Iranian artist Shirin Neshat in an installation at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. It remains one of the most singular, chilling and moving pieces of art i have ever witnessed. In the exhibit, you enter a completely dark room, with benches in the center. The two videos project on opposite walls.

The placard crediting the exhibit included the note that, in Islamic culture, women are forbidden to sing in public.



This essay by Atom Egoyan includes some further background and impressions of the piece, such as:

I entered a dark room. On one wall, a singer delivers a passionate love song to a group of men. He is faced away from his audience, secure that his performance will be accepted and adored from whatever position he chooses to take. This is his cultural privilege. He is a man, surrounded by men. On the opposite wall, a woman in a black chador stands silently throughout his song. She faces an empty auditorium. This is the position she has no choice but to take. Her society has imposed it on her. She is expected to face the empty seats. To comply with the strictures of her state, she can’t dance to the music, show the shape of her body, or uncover her head. Above all, she cannot sing in public. This might inflame the passions of the male viewers. It might break their concentration on their beloved singer, the man who is so confident of his audience’s devotion that he can turn his back to them.

Then something stunning happens. As the male singer finishes his song, he turns around to bow to his audience. Suddenly, a mysterious sound beckons him away from the appreciative, applauding men and he again turns around to face the lens. At this moment, on the opposite screen, the camera begins a sinuous, sensual track towards the hidden female singer. As the camera circles around this figure, we hear an impassioned wordless song composed of supernatural breaths and ecstatic cries — an amazing symphony of unbridled, primal emotion.

notes to a poem on a massacre of women

Many of the young girls here look so beautiful as to not be human, very edible.
--George Sodini

"She just kept saying, He's gonna kill me."
Walker said she didn't elaborate.

47 years after Marilyn, naked,
died in a bed that wasn't hers,
a man walked into a room
walled with mirrors,
full of women,
and shut the lights.

If he looked to his
right or left,
they stood
side by side
to infinity.
He opened fire.

So any shots that missed someone hit a mirror


Walk us thorough it,
the reporters ask.

It was all women who got shot,
says the witness,
after he says sir
to the giddy newscaster,
leading him,
who asks
What have you heard about a love triangle?

And the shaken man
in his muscled torso
singlet wet with blood
that wasn't his,
tan film over his muscles
laced with tattoos,
says I would think so, sir,
I would think that...
a guy--
I mean it was all girls that got shot, so...

The logic being that
for the man to do what he did,
he had to have
loved at least
one woman
in that room
too much
or more.


We come every week,
the women say,
with my sister
with my friend
to be gorgeous,
to be strong
in our bodies.


He's just shooting around the room

just shooting everywhere

he stood in the back of the room

and started shooting every

started shooting everywhere...

Us girls, we all
just
ducked
on the floor,
we were just
covering
each other.


i can see how
from here
you must feel
separate
with no blood
of your own
to shed.


A latin influenced aerobic workout that will leave you ready for more!
Enjoy the dance styles of Salsa, Meranga and Cha Cha Cha while getting fit!

We were
just following
our routine.


I took off today,
Monday, and tomorrow
to practice my routine
and make sure it is
well polished.


One two
one two
one two
and turn
and forward

Skin lit with sweat,
hips swivel
right left
right left

toe heel
toe heel
toe heel
toe heel

Sneakers smack wood
squeak shrill
on step-ball-change.

thighs
tremble
tense
tremble
tense

Catches
her own gaze
in the mirrors,
in the split
second
half-turn,
witnesses
her form,
her body
full with movement,
brimming
humming.

Under thick bass
lungs deep with breath
out in
out in
out in

cha-cha-cha

and
one two
one two

hearts thud
their temples
roots of their teeth
in unison
or nearly

one and two
three and four
five and six
step back


Someone said run.