absurdfuture

[absurdfuture]

[absurdfuture]

I am not I. I am this one walking beside me whom I do not see, whom at times I manage to visit, and whom at other times I forget; who remains calm and silent while I talk, and forgives, gently, when I hate, who walks where I am not, who will remain standing when I die.

Juan Ramon Jimenez

[absurdfuture]

Night Landscape.

[absurdfuture]

James Corner（American, b.1961）

From the book “Taking Measures Across the American Landscape”  1996      Photos taken by Alex MacLean     via

James Corner, internationally renowned landscape architect and forerunner of the landscape urbanism movement, was author in 1996 of “Taking Measures Across the American Landscape“, an exploration of American types of landscapes through essays and map drawings by Corner and aerial photos taken by Alex McLean.

“(The book) investigates the ways in which landscape representation–particularly aerial vision–not only reflects a given reality but also constitutes a way of seeing and acting in the world. It discusses the many meanings of measure–from practical (such as solar furnaces in California) to poetic (such as raised tablets in Illinois that once formed the structure of an ancient city). And it suggests alternative possibilities for planning and taking future measures in our environment, building upon examples that range from the rectilinear survey landscape to the great transportation networks and such technological innovations as windmill fields, pivot-irrigation systems, and radio-telescope installations.” From the Yale University Press      text from SOCKS

[absurdfuture]

If you don't know the kind of person I am and I don't know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star. For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dike. And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail, but if one wanders the circus won't find the park, I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact. And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy, a remote important region in all who talk: though we could fool each other, we should consider— lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark. For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep; the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe — should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

A Ritual to Read to Each Other by William Stafford

#poem #ritual #william stafford

[absurdfuture]

André Masson

[absurdfuture]

Jen Bervin, The Desert, Granary Books, New York, NY, 2008, Edition of 40, pp. 24-25

[absurdfuture]

GIF: Bill Domonkos, 2014 (Photo: Harry Furniss,  c1920’s)

[absurdfuture]

Schönbrunn Palace

[absurdfuture]

“The floating ball.” Magical revelations. 19–?

[absurdfuture]

yes, we can talk

Having loved enough and lost enough, I am no longer searching, just opening.

No longer trying to make sense of pain, but trying to be a soft and sturdy home in which real things can land.

These are the irritations that rub into a pearl

So we can talk awhile but then we must listen, the way rocks listen to the sea

And we can churn at all that goes wrong but then we must lay all distractions down, and water every living seed.

And yes, on nights like tonight I too feel alone, but seldom do I face it squarely enough to see that it is a door into the endless breath that has no breather into the surf that human shells call god.

By Mark Nepo

#meditation #poem #radical self love

[absurdfuture]

Asako Narahashi

[absurdfuture]

“So may we, in this life trust to those elements we have yet to see or imagine, and look for the true shape of our own self, by forming it well to the great intangibles about us.” ― David Whyte, The House of Belonging

#david whyte

[absurdfuture]

Vali Myers, House

[absurdfuture]

SOMEONE BROUGHT YOU INTO THIS WORLD AND SOMEONE CAN TAKE YOU

to the moment you first felt the gallop of rain across your face and understood it to be less violent than a parent walking away from the siren of your reaching arms. America, you should know that I feel like the uninvited guest at a funeral for someone I knew well, but could never bring myself to love. people have stopped asking me to smile since I surrendered the desire to write about your bullets. Your blade, slicing the longest journey through stolen fruit. And still, memory is a cage where only the cruelest animals survive. When Brandon’s father could no longer remember the names of his children, he called out whatever leapt to mind first. The names of old enemies. The man who, once, held a knife to his throat in a Birmingham dive bar. A child answers to their father, calling out for someone who once wished him dead. This is love, I’m told. Answer not to what you are called, but how you are called. America, it is getting so late in the poem and we both find ourselves waiting to be turned into something better than we were when it all began. Both of us, a tapestry of longing for things we do not deserve. I have no memory of when I began waiting for storms to pass, fearing the impermanent stain of water as I might fear the intentions of a man holding a weapon and an empty glass. Maybe that memory will return when I shed the more precious ones. Everyone, running towards the sound of my excavated voice. -  HANIF ABDURRAQIB

#poems #america

[absurdfuture]

Excluding Voices: A Necklace of Thoughts on the Ideology of Style

Once upon a time there was a society of priests who built a Celestial City with gates secured by word-combination locks. The priests were masters of the Word and, within the City, ascending levels of power and treasure became accessible to those who could learn ascendingly intricate levels of Word Magic. At the very top level, the priests became gods; and because they then had nothing left to seek, they engaged in games with which to pass the long hours of eternity. In particular, they liked to ride their strong, sure-footed steeds around and around the perimeter of heaven: now jumping word hurdles, now playing polo with concepts of the moon and the stars, now reaching up to touch that pinnacle, that splinter of Refined Understanding called Superstanding, which was the brass ring of their merry-go-round. In time, some of the priests-turned-gods tired of this sport, denounced it as meaningless. They donned the garb of pilgrims, seekers once more, and passed beyond the gates of the Celestial City. In this recursive passage they acquired the knowledge of Undoing Words. Beyond the walls of the City lay a Deep Blue Sea. The priests built small boats and set sail, determined to explore the uncharted courses and open vistas of this new terrain. They wandered for many years in this manner, until at last they reached a place that was half a circumference away from the Celestial City. From this point the City appeared as a mere shimmering illusion; and the priests knew that they had finally reached a place Beyond the Power of Words. They let down their anchors, the plumb lines of their reality, and experienced godhood once more. Under the Celestial City, dying mortals cried out their rage and suffering, battered by a steady rain of sharp hooves whose thundering, sound-drowning path described the wheel of their misfortune.

At the bottom of the Deep Blue Sea, drowning mortals reached silently and desperately for drifting anchors dangling from short chains far, far overhead, which they thought were lifelines meant for them.

#intersectionality #imagined

[absurdfuture]

{2015} from laser dreams  (digital photography, laser prints, collage)

{website ⁂ instagram ⁂ youtube ⁂ shop}