L. where are you? The biggest We of I misses you!

From the Long Sad Party
Mark Strand

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Someone was saying
something about shadows covering the field, about
how things pass, how one sleeps towards morning
and the morning goes.

Someone was saying
how the wind dies down but comes back,
how shells are the coffins of wind
but the weather continues.

It was a long night
and someone said something about the moon shedding its
white
on the cold field, that there was nothing ahead
but more of the same.

Someone mentioned
a city she had been in before the war, a room with two
candles
against a wall, someone dancing, someone watching.
We begin to believe

the night would not end.
Someone was saying the music was over and no one had
noticed.
Then someone said something about the planets, about the
stars,
how small they were, how far away.

It seemed to write me about it...

Revisiting Directions

Absence is the record of a presence not yet spoken
An extension of the hand not reflected

Restraint is an understatement when addressed in too many circles
An empty face is a pile of features upon features
touching touching touching touching

How to inhabit your space without admitting the touch of others

How to guide a moment into meaning beyond The already known, The could already be forgotten,
The discarded skin of fruit sliced
too ripe
too soon

a photograph
a peel

Green is the loneliest color you'll ever know

from the MS Word dictionary, a partnership with the Merriam Webster company:

Unripe or not mature
Newly cut and still unseasoned
Not yet tanned
Not yet fired
Envious or jealous
Pale and sickly-looking, especially as a result of nausea
Naïve and lacking in experience, especially because of being new to something
Young, new, recent, or fresh

-->end quote re: definition of green<<

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Crisp white linens tucked into four corners of the bed
a glass of water on the stand, half-full
for now
before the empty sets in

these are days worth waking into
fighting heavy fingers that urge
the body back to
rest in peace

the sheets are the receipt for this transaction
an uneven, single exchange

The sea I suck in deeply, extending the fingers as oars to type waves into the words

...are splashes upon splashes of papers sticking themselves up out of books, posted driftwood -- "hey, save me first, anchor these words!" attention drawn by the highlights, maximized minimum space (black text on white) of 15-20 pages >> nevermind; due three weeks ago...

The form of the index card - constraint? release? retention? reminder?

How do we know what is important?

If it makes its way off the page, through the eyes, to the brain, signaling the hand

1. reach for pen
2. reach for paper
3. write the black ink configured as you see it,
4. record the moment of reading
5. to translate it - later - into a era of knowledge

then it is given a portable reference/record. One that can be owned, traveled with, accessed again upon whim, no need for a library check-out.

With all the information that is possible, how do we know what is important to know?

We mark its importance through its recording, picking the object closest to us for the translation:

The index card

A believer himself in the index card, Barthes (in Roland Barthes) remarked on the action of using it as a tool to record data:

"Still warm, nothing is yet to be determined of its quality: stupid? dangerous? insignificant? worth keeping? to be thrown away? to be focused? to be protected?"

you know you're On the Right Track (???)

...When your citation list for your graduate school paper includes at least 4-5 of the personalities depicted on the Theory Trading Cards. (so jealous these guys came up with this first!)

Question: Why is Tracey Emin on a card in the same deck as Goffman, Foucault, Benjamin, and Said? Was one of the creators of the Theory Trading Cards included in her tent installation, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995? I guess since it perished in flames a few weeks ago, we'll never know. (Maybe Gilbert and George know yet another something we don't...??!)