I.
I’m in Zagreb and my aunt asks if I try to live more with the head or heart. If I’m sensitive or sensible. And I say I try to live more by heart now.
“Oh that’s so hard,” she says.
II.
On Panic Attacks (2006)
This flesh is crumbling. The whole edifice is swaying as if an earthquake rolls beneath it and what can the poor occupant do but hold on to her dear life and pray that it stops? Despite being master of her form, she is in its control, dependent on its every pulse. It demands her to know of its deficiencies and of the weakness she has built it. No longer amicable to the bureaucratic investigations of her soul, the body is protesting w/ a vengeance, with a shut down, with the betrayal of her mind keeping secret information from her. It is a Watergate in that the floodgates have opened and poured out a natural disaster that makes the tall ashen & the confident knock-kneed and full of chattering teeth biting on the golden tongue. It is the end of the ID. Down with the spirit. We demand the moment and that is why the body always wins.
III
A Poem About Teeth
Little people of the village,
I thank you for the efforts you make.
The food you break. The
anxiety you endure when I
clench.
Little people, I thank you for your
individuality. We all of us have
but one life. I try to make it all worthwhile for you.
I wrote a BOOK about poetry, friendships and Japan! You can read an excerpt here. You can buy it here.