Flattery, deference, smiles, ringing laughter, affectionate greetings were the order of the day.
the quality of their unjudging listening, granted tacit forgiveness,
a soldierly fixity of mind
a series of spastic clumsy gymnastic movements that were somehow accusatory,
He came out of nothingness, took form, was loved, was always bound to return to nothingness.
(GS)
Zura Lagarde, The Silent Pulse Beneath Still Stone, Artmedia Gallery, April 25 – July 30, 2025.
“I perceive the spaces where time flickers—where déjà vu hums like a distant echo, where a breath feels borrowed from another life.”
Untitled (Diurnal respite on the Matanzas; inventing forms of escape; spend the good days readying for it.) 2020. Archival pigment print, 60 x 40 inches. Shown in Wander and Errancies at CEAM, 2020.
spend the good days readying for it might need an edit. It might refer to something that I noted; I will have to check. Spent good days readying for it. Spent the goods readying for it. Spent the good part of a day. Spent the better part of a day. Spent the good part of many days readying for it. Spent days readying for it. Spend days readying for it.
Only instruction. Not a dwelling.
Or if you must dwell:
The sweet smell of weeds then.
The sweet smell of weeds now.
An endurance. A standoff. A rest.
Weeds, Diane Seuss
Richard Wright, Camden Art Center.
Charline von Heyl, Petzel, New York, 2018. Poetry Machine #1.
Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, SFMOMA, an installation view.
The 30 best nonfiction books of the last 30 years, LATimes. Fiction.
remember this is how the small survives.
“We have energy for an abundance of beauty … “
Montserrat Guillen, chef. El Internacional. FoodCultura.
Ignorance, he thought, and vanity. He hadn’t been alert early enough, hadn’t seen the signs jutting out everywhere around him. (TM)
it was the truest thing to say that there
are things in life that can’t be renounced
because renouncing them is to surrender
who we are and surrendering has never
been an option this is life this is life
this is our truest life
lo nuestro, ire’ne lara silva
I used to want to be a saint but I only became a poet.
I try not to do what I don’t want to do because of the love
That creeps into things even in their misery. I try to fly
Over what I feel and see it but sometimes I have no choice
And can only be it like an animal. I try to be honestly
Outside what does not include me and honestly inside
What does. I think a lot about what a dandelion in a junk heap
Does compared to a dandelion in a tender garden whose every
Leaf is beloved, and what such flowers which are weeds feel.
Things like that
Are what I think a lot about. Sometimes I think there isn’t any feeling
I like quite so much as the one I get
From having written a poem, a poem that I like. It’s a peaceful
Feeling that I can’t find any other way. Loving you doesn’t give
Me a peaceful feeling at all. Or writing to you. Or writing
At all, mostly. There is the panicking feeling I like of being about
To blow my brains out. Genocidal shame that makes me dream
Of stuffing my own organs in my mouth for sweetness when the opacity
Of certain people gives me a nauseating whiff of their dead
Souls. The worlds I had to cross to see this. The things I had to do
To myself to write this. The breeze on the fine white
Hairs of my typing forearms, the lupine flopped over
Out my window, another one bites the dust, another
Surrender to spring. It’s the new moon, and according
To all the art people who are into astrology lately it’s gonna
Be a good one. And it isn’t my window
At all. In two days it’ll be somebody else’s. But we’re
Together right now, like you and me, and right now
I love you completely
A Poem, Ariana Reines. Miami Rail, 2012.
The Rose, Ariana Reines. Graywolf Press, 2025. On the design of the cover.
