embalming-babylon-blog

[embalming-babylon-blog]

[embalming-babylon-blog]

Our house in Taylors photographed by Susannah Coleman.

[embalming-babylon-blog]

I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process. It needs not a map but a history, and if I don’t stop writing that history at some quite arbitrary point, there’s no reason why I should ever stop. There is something new to be chronicled every day. Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape. As I’ve already noted, not every bend does. Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago. That is when you wonder whether the valley isn’t a circular trench. But it isn’t. There are partial recurrences, but the sequence doesn’t repeat.

C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (p. 50–1)

[embalming-babylon-blog]

The Aspirant

Packing your well-wishes behind the tongue The painting starts crawling away

Your morbid ascension Your favorite lessons in a perceived sickness

I spy a possibility- a slow-building loyalty Tokens to pay for the variety of consumption it takes to keep the world turning.

Our league remains unseen The catapult declaring our suffering

Quickly evaporating days A breakdown- moving further away colors the persisting dream.

Illumination burning its way Through every space you've stopped to think.

Can you afford the adaptability it would take To simply hang up your old suit And slip into something new?

Because here they wait impatiently- halfway into shoes that will never fit Questioning the capability of the aspirant

#poetry #writing #literature #poem #poets on tumblr

[embalming-babylon-blog]

The lower the organism the less it responds to irritation; the higher, the more sensitively and energetically it reacts to reality.

Chekhov

#chekhov #literature

[embalming-babylon-blog]

Tranquil Laundry Days.

#film photography #35mm film #los angeles #echo park #film is not dead #film

[embalming-babylon-blog]

Living room.

#film photography #35mm film #film is not dead #interiors #vintage #sunset #los angeles #Silver Lake

[embalming-babylon-blog]

Cracked doors.

#film #film photography #cat #california #los angeles #Silver Lake #35mm film #Minolta

[embalming-babylon-blog]

We migrate to the tune of what we suspect we already know.

[embalming-babylon-blog]

Living Room.

#film #film photography #greenlight #living room #silver lake #los angeles

[embalming-babylon-blog]

Bedroom Sunlight.

#california #film #film phogoraphy #film is not dead #35mm #minolta

[embalming-babylon-blog]

Book ends

#film photography #filmisnotdead #35mm film #books and libraries #literature

[embalming-babylon-blog]

I wish You would swim away Leave with the ghosts around the conference table. All of these strange rooms- Museums and diners Greens and oranges  For every checkered-floored waiting room starts playing the soundtrack of our childhood. You asked if I knew You exist I believe. I believe it's eating me. Filling up to the sense of Your movement Less than the answer: More that You're asking. I haven't worn a mask for days The flesh feast takes four days to turn the page But at least I'm trying. You thought it was a yes because You never heard a no Grabs me by the arm-pulls me to the sign We're at the party in the clouds above the airport You said You gave Your son up and he tracked You down just to give a speech about How he could never love You You held onto one another and cried afterward You were the prettiest and I opened my eyes in Your bed My blood locked in the centrifuge "how did You ge...t...he..." Just having a peek at You, half-dead Waiting to disappear in the smoke. I was just too many people All at once

#writers #books and libraries #poets on tumblr #poetry #black and white #portrait #self portrait #poem #silver lake #losangeles

[embalming-babylon-blog]

#film phogoraphy #35mm film #black and white #black and white film #filmisnotdead #film #photography #california #angeles crest highway

[embalming-babylon-blog]

Ownership that's difficult to track. I can't say that she was lounging in the thick of it- Or lied to by the leasing agent... Memories DO shift. I quit regarding that with plenty others. Pretty colored lights from which you may drink your fluids straight from the bulb- Imagine that! I was looking at You in every heavy-lidded situation. As reasons rotated all but You Eliminated themselves from circulation. So, this is Christmas! And all the days surrounding leave Risidual smoke and wretching. Standing just around the crater where the first meteor of death came and went through But comes and comes again. Now you sway. Now you pinch your time and pennies. Running capable nails through my truth. Both sides of the moon and fundamentally high afternoons. Scuttling through houses. Sirens screeching. Flex cables rot and break. "You may enjoy your solitude" -They will say "BUT have you ever heard of MONEY?" Is there a more obnoxious way of sinning than to make a great deal of mess just outside of the laundry?  Involving You in the way I'll work it out. Adding text until fully round. Someone invites us to the alter and offers to lead us in silent prayer But then he starts strumming his acoustic guitar. As I push toward the eventual the now  scrounges up energy. The market drowns itself in the love of the present eco-system I allow it in the name of balance, destruction, and purpose. In the name of the questions you may ask yourself before you resign to blowing your world up. What good are these critiques? Have you taken all you can drink? Night after knock you rattle the locks. Another solitary soul to protect your own. Some dusty, hateful corners beyond the best view. That precognition of the relatively near youth Where you must merge, again or change your path. Flood the astral maps to grind the walls out. Have mercy on You: Caught in the waves. I AM I AM I AM DISPLACED. Weighing the days and nights to pretend that what you've had before has somehow become intangible. Trying desperately to focus on the sound of me: Rain falling into a well at which you sit at the bottom Like a wish too alive to be drowned.

#poetry #poets on tumblr #portrait #books and libraries #literature #writers #silver lake #losangeles

[embalming-babylon-blog]

Here I am! Calling in at my point of exhaustion there is only to work your way out. You never knew how aware you'd become of those sitting out of the frame But the absence of the silent soul chattering Tears your waning supply to shreds On the subject of practiced positivity: The feelings haven't disappeared The stereotypes are still cut as cookies Fumbling around with your hot button issues Cold calling your Knight in Shining Armour Vessels sucking the air from your collapsing dream Leaving no oxygen behind to cut through this atmosphere thick with emotions unfelt and abandoned by their owners. The man married to the ever transitioning moon finds himself tasked with righting his relentlessly inverting cross Topsy Turvy-gravity is gone. That lightning sponge of a moon! That clear white electrocution zapping out revivals until depleted. Rushing away from the hose Performing within the suction AM I AM I AM I AM I ABOVE IT? Excuse me- some stanger picks a bad time to ask about restrictions. It's a holiday and it will always be! Shuffling through the roads Side stepping sleepy drivers Soiling your mask of sanity with this Babbling Bubbling These times when your words slur: These times are quite troubling. You come home, again Just as the black water rising Starts my roots rotting.

#poetry #portrait #dreamcatcher #writers #poets on tumblr #los angeles #silver lake

[embalming-babylon-blog]

Silver Lake Farmers market.

#film photography #35mm film #los angeles #silver lake #film #filmisnotdead