the image coupled to the word

IWW Hotel Frank Solidarity Picket II, June 17

2011-06-17T23:28:00.000-07:00

a restaurant at nw 21st in portland mistreats workers, dec 11 2009

2009-12-11T15:28:00.000-08:00

toast and pho is stealing wages

2009-12-11T15:23:00.000-08:00

don't eat here

2009-12-11T15:16:00.000-08:00

2009-08-05T13:57:00.001-07:00

2009-08-05T13:55:00.000-07:00

2009-08-05T13:53:00.000-07:00

2009-08-05T13:50:00.000-07:00

found fragments of a spanish scripture

2009-08-05T13:47:00.000-07:00

2009-08-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

2009-05-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

calle guayaquil, primer de mayo

2009-05-06T14:30:00.000-07:00

2009-05-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

2009-05-06T14:03:00.000-07:00

2009-05-06T13:57:00.000-07:00

2009-05-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

2009-05-06T13:21:00.000-07:00

2009-05-06T13:15:00.000-07:00

2009-05-06T13:07:00.000-07:00

2009-05-06T12:02:00.000-07:00

2009-05-06T11:28:00.000-07:00

Quito, Ecuador

2009-04-22T11:50:00.000-07:00

2009-04-22T11:43:00.000-07:00

2009-04-22T11:24:00.000-07:00

Berlin

2008-03-29T19:21:00.000-07:00

Berlin, January 2008

2008-03-17T13:01:00.000-07:00

Germany, England, January 2008

2008-03-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

Vagabondage, Berlin

2008-03-13T10:36:00.000-07:00

Berlin, January 2008

2008-03-09T20:18:00.000-07:00

2008-03-09T20:16:00.000-07:00

2008-03-09T20:12:00.000-07:00

London and Amsterdam, Double Exposures, January 2008

2008-03-02T21:19:00.000-08:00

2008-02-25T21:34:00.000-08:00

2008-02-25T21:31:00.000-08:00

2008-02-25T21:30:00.000-08:00

2008-02-25T21:29:00.000-08:00

2008-02-25T21:27:00.000-08:00

2008-02-25T21:26:00.000-08:00

2008-02-25T21:24:00.000-08:00

the white

2007-09-17T15:34:00.000-07:00

him from the beginning

2007-09-17T15:33:00.000-07:00

this is not art

2007-09-17T15:30:00.000-07:00

attrition

2007-08-02T13:50:00.001-07:00

wooden nun

2007-08-02T13:49:00.001-07:00

arabian blood

2007-06-03T14:36:00.001-07:00

unknown verbs

2007-06-03T14:35:00.001-07:00

our beauty modified

2007-06-03T14:32:00.000-07:00

2007-04-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

2007-04-30T11:36:00.000-07:00

2007-04-30T11:34:00.000-07:00

2007-04-25T14:18:00.002-07:00

2007-04-25T14:18:00.001-07:00

2007-04-23T11:12:00.000-07:00

2007-04-18T10:48:00.001-07:00

2007-04-18T10:47:00.001-07:00

2007-04-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

Noon, October 8, 2005

2007-04-09T11:35:00.000-07:00

How to retain this vision as my life? Can these images of God live?

My doubt displaces all mystery, all hope. Left in darkness, afraid of speech and the punishments for blasphemy.

My word is image: Life as it could be, life as it must be. These two in contrast.

We are drowning. There is judgment in the water all around, and we drink this in. There is a water which can heal, but we use it to bathe our vanity.

2007-03-26T22:17:00.000-07:00

2007-03-26T22:16:00.000-07:00

2007-03-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

2007-03-19T11:45:00.000-07:00

2007-03-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

2007-02-27T17:21:00.002-08:00

2007-02-27T17:21:00.001-08:00

2007-02-27T17:20:00.000-08:00

2007-02-27T17:19:00.002-08:00

2007-02-27T17:19:00.001-08:00

2007-02-27T17:18:00.000-08:00

2007-02-27T17:15:00.000-08:00

2007-01-23T20:10:00.000-08:00

2007-01-08T09:03:00.000-08:00

2007-01-08T09:02:00.000-08:00

2007-01-08T09:01:00.000-08:00

2007-01-08T08:50:00.000-08:00

2006-12-26T09:24:00.000-08:00

2006-12-26T09:22:00.000-08:00

2006-08-10T15:36:00.000-07:00

The sun doesn't reach here. Only a Christ who is writing mystery into the ground like a child. Putting his marks of God into the earth. Not for us to see. Only for us to marvel at.

Where are the Jews who wrestle with God? Where is the Christ who sweats blood of doubt, who wonders of his disciples, "Who do they say I am?"

We've turned him into our idol of reason and assurance. Our pulpits serve as Babel towers. Mystery has been crucified again.

2006-08-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

2006-08-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

How we kill ourselves in our sleep shows our soul,
shows our form.

We sing death into life
and this hymn is hope.
The hope past all infernos --
to the mercy beyond.

And these visions hold our faith,
our only faith.

We realize that our lives possess a pain we'll never lose,
a pain that will follow us into death.

And our fears of death could be irrational,
or a deep knowledge and instinct based in truth.

2006-08-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

Doubting me, they are all doubting me.

I eat in the den of mentals and drunks. American Indian next to me yells something about sex. A few laughs, many uncomfortable stares. “Aren’t Indians allowed in here?” he yells as he walks out.

Three minutes later he’s walking back into this soup kitchen for his companion who tells him, “Fuck off, I’m eating.” Heading out again, he looks at me and says, “You’re an actor. You’re in comedies.”

“Yeah,” the guy sitting across from me says with a smirk, “you’re in comedies.” I give a slight smile and keep eating. Finish. Walk out.

It’s all gray. A friend thinks I’m lying. A lover thinks I’m unworthy. They’re all doubting me. These are dark comedies I guess.

2006-04-16T11:53:00.001-07:00

2006-04-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

2006-04-16T11:51:00.000-07:00

2006-04-16T11:47:00.000-07:00

2006-04-16T11:46:00.000-07:00

2006-04-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

2006-04-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

2006-04-15T15:37:00.000-07:00

2006-04-15T15:34:00.000-07:00

2005-10-09T15:39:00.000-07:00

The child lifted himself onto the ledge. Sat. Watched, three stories down, the streets. Calm, occasionally interrupted by people striding in straight lines toward some future location of plan and purpose.

The child thought of his past. Times of low spirit when he’d desired height only that he might trade it for his end. The breaking of bones and concrete. The child thought of this looking at a cat across the street – running on a ledge, also three stories, hunting. The life of this animal changed – given new parameters and dangers by the city. Then the cat disappeared into a crevice in search of bird.

The child turned to look back at the people walking below and his hand slipped. A half-word came from his chest. His skin awoke. He fell three stories, landed on his back and broke the concrete with his death.

And with the contact of family there were thoughts without words. Thoughts of the directionless and melancholy. The unsaved and judged. Thoughts of the egocentrism of suicide. An aunt was overheard whispering, “He didn’t even leave a note.”

2005-09-16T18:45:00.000-07:00

And Hosea heard God say, "Marry the whore and know how I love." The prophet then took as his wife, Gomar, adulterous daughter of Diblain. She bore him three children and God told Hosea to name them Forsaken.

And with this word branded into them the three children wandered into the desert.

The first of these forsaken, a son called Jezreel, walked to a flat place and prostrated himself before God. He asked for mercy for several hours until the sun's heat brought sleep and he never awoke.

The second forsaken child God had named Lo-Ruhamah. She walked past Jezreel's corpse and saw that his lack of searching for water and cover from the sun had ended his days. Lo-Ruhamah found a pool of water and drank. She became sick. The God of her fathers looked away from her and Lo-Ruhamah died.

The third child of Gomar and the prophet was a son named Lo-Ammi, a name Hosea had been given in a vision. Lo-Ammi's mind was simple and his tongue was mute. Thus he could neither call out in prayer to the God of Hosea nor plan a way of survival in the desert.

Many years passed, and Hosea saw his death approaching. He mumbled often of visions, but no one could decipher his words.

Gomar dreamed that one of the three forsaken children still lived in the desert. She awoke and walked to the desert. She found her youngest son in a cave, naked and hairy.

And as the dying prophet mumbled, he saw before him his last child. Lo-Ammi knelt beside the bed of Hosea and placed his ear over his father's mouth.

The prophet died. People gathered around Lo-Ammi to watch him for a sign of the last words of God. This forsaken man looked into the eyes of those gathered and searched them as he turned. Finally he settled on his mother's gaze.

Lo-Ammi took hold of Gomar's dress and ripped it and it fell from her. This forsaken child took the hand of this whore and walked with her away from the crowd, away from his father's house, and into the desert.

Gomar lived out the remainder of her days in the cave of Lo-Ammi. She died giving birth to a daughter, who was mute like her father, and could not be named.

2005-09-10T22:29:00.000-07:00

And the unheard breathe paint,
leave their mind in the street,
rotting.

And their mumbled truths are stillborn;
numbness is their peace.

And batons keep them to the broken concrete;
squats and plastic roofs.

And they whisper into the chemical cup,
their only ear and only lover.

And their lost words are prophesy;
God's voice dies here.

2005-09-04T15:15:00.000-07:00

I write,
two cups of boxed white in me.
Fear of my temperamental stomach;
fragile flesh.

Death of purity,
death of sin.
Boredom of the real.
Truth with her many sides.

Truth in the eyes of that Bolivian beggar hag
who shakes her hat more fiercely at the whites.

Pisses me off.
I gave her a small coin.
She shakes with a truth.

2005-09-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

The omens are all myth,
and the poets prophesy,
suck their language through a straw,
sack o' whiskey,
Plaza de los Heroes.

My wealth is concealed in cloth and lies,
and the lustrador proposes a trade of vests.
"No puedo."
Socialism got no hold on me.

Lust in my deceivin' mouth.
Eyes with the form of truth.
The seer asks,
"How do you value?"
He grips the weakening of words
with a pass of his bag.

I cannot drink.
This omen binds.
I drift through myth into unconsciousness
where morality is neither text nor truth.
It is not,
and thus I sleep.
Warm in my vest.

2005-09-04T14:51:00.000-07:00

The drops from the crucifix pool on the cathedral floor. The tired janitor mops the blood again. The only witness. Night by night, removing the blood of the Christ. Night by night, until morning.

Baptism

2005-08-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

The child stood in a pool of muddy water. Stiff brown clothes. A heat irrational and erratic kept surfacing. Repeated baths in the only water around. A need of his ruleless mood. This lost day.

He dropped, loosening his pant's, his shirt's, his skin's stiffness again with wetness. And he rose again, blowing air through his lips to keep from tasting mud. Sat in the dirt, in the sun. His cycle of madness.

And his mind turned. Work of soul. Work of hell. Cycles of sanity. Reasons known but unwordable. For a time his fire cooled.

"Kill me," he moaned. The child pulled a knife from his pocket and opened the blade. He pointed it at the sun, at God. "You must take me. You must take responsibility."

He pressed the point into his palm. A line of blood flowed to the dirt. He shut his hand. "You hear me," he growled. "If you don't, I am only speaking to this blade, and this blade speaks back."

The child looked from the blood in one hand to the knife in the other. Then tilting his head back he stared at the sun, at God. "You hear me, so kill me." A cloud drifted between the child and the sun. Enshadowed and wet, he shivered.

He wondered if God was speaking. If God was refusing him. If his sickness, if his soul, was being given to the earth. If god would not look on this chaos anymore.

The child shivered in his loneliness, in the breeze. Not able to look up anymore, he yelled, "If you will not, this dirt will." He glared at the muddy knife. One last time, he turned his eyes up. He stared at the cloud-drift. This earth -- wind and moisture reflecting his darkness.

One last time, the child was blinded. Squinting into light revealed. He stood in this new heat and threw his pocketknife deep into the muddy water. Then he fell in after it.

He stood again. Wet again. And walked away in the sun. Finally dead. Finally calmed.