January 27th, 2008
we saw the two doe that day. their white triangles leaning towards a suicide rock.
phenomenon and silence.
soon enough
January 26th, 2008It may be worth it.
I am not sure if I have ever revealed here on the sigh-ed blog the news of my brother’s suicide. I found out on January 27th. The coroner called my apartment building because my mother did not have a phone at the time. I lived two blocks from her and I stood outside for what seemed like forever before I went to tell her the news that Micah Sol Landsman had expired. The next few days were blurry. People fed me pills. I sobbed and fucked and sobbed while fucking. What I do remember is the last day that I saw him. It was January first and he needed a ride home from my mothers house. The boy (berm) was with me and I had a futon that needed to go in my new apartment. It wouldn’t fit in the elevator and he selflessly carried it up five flights of stairs for me? What did I do for him? I have to fill in the blanks for that still. Right now I am suffering. I miss him selfishly (as per my normal persona would). I hope his matter has made Mount Baldi a better place. He came to me in dreams. Once in a library full of dark polished wood and good books. Once to go swimming with J. And once to look at me through a window with the biggest grin on his face. Sometimes my throat gets thick and I excuse myself to let the hot salt come down my face. My thoughts are to alleviate his suffering and the suffering he has left here. There are so many people he affected by this decision, and I know I am not alone when I am looking backwards.
If you are interested I have very much associated within the last three years with these lyrics by Belle and Sebastian. I know, blech, songs, blech. Poems and songs sometimes say it just as well as I could, though.
Ease you’re feet off in the sea
My darling it’s the place to be
Take your shoes off curl your toes
And I will frame this moment in time
Troubles come and troubles go
The trouble that we’ve come to know
Will stay with us till we get old
Will stay with us till somebody decides to go
Decides to gooo……
Soberly, without regret, I make another sandwich
And I fill my face, I know that things have got to you
But what can I do?
Suddenly, without a warning
On a pale blue morning
You decide your time is wearing thin
A conscious choice to let yourself go dangling
Hovering
It’s an emergency
There’s no more “wait and see”
Maybe if I shut my eyes
Your trouble will be split between us
People come and people go
You’re scouring everybody’s face
For some small flicker of the truth
To what it is that you are going through, my boy
I left you dry
The signs were clear that you were not going anywhere
Anywhere
Save for a falling down
Save for a falling down
Anywhere
Anywhere
Save for a falling down
Everything’s going wrong
Later on, as I walked home
The plow was showing, and orion
I could see the house where you lived
I could see the house where you gave
All your time and sanity to people
Then you waited for the people to acknowledge you
They spoke in turn
But their eyes would pass over you
Over you
Who’s seeing you at all?
Who’s seeing You at all?
Ease you’re feet off in the sea
My darling it’s the place to be
Take your shoes off curl your toes
And I will frame this moment in time
Troubles come and troubles go
The trouble that we’ve come to know
Will stay with us till we get old
Will stay with us till somebody decides to go
Decides to gooo……
Soberly, without regret, I make another sandwich
And I fill my face, I know that things have got to you
But what can I do?
Suddenly, without a warning
On a pale blue morning
You decide your time is wearing thin
A conscious choice to let yourself go dangling
Hovering
It’s an emergency
There’s no more “wait and see”
Maybe if I shut my eyes
Your trouble will be split between us
People come and people go
You’re scouring everybody’s face
For some small flicker of the truth
To what it is that you are going through, my boy
I left you dry
The signs were clear that you were not going anywhere
Anywhere
Save for a falling down
Save for a falling down
Anywhere
Anywhere
Save for a falling down
Everything’s going wrong
Later on, as I walked home
The plow was showing, and orion
I could see the house where you lived
I could see the house where you gave
All your time and sanity to people
Then you waited for the people to acknowledge you
They spoke in turn
But their eyes would pass over you
Over you
Who’s seeing you at all?
Who’s seeing You at all?
*************************************************
Also, for the permanence of the ethers I will post the entirety of the poem that was read at his funeral. It is by Philip Levine and is called “And the trains go on”
We stood at the back door
of the shop in the night air
while a line of box cars
of soured wheat and pop bottles
uncoupled and was sent creaking
down our spur. Once, when I
unsealed a car and the two
of us strained the door open
with a groan of rust, an old man
stepped out and tipped his hat.
‘It’s all yours, boys!’
and he went off, stiff-legged,
smelling of straw and shit.
I often wonder whose father
he was and how long he kept
moving until the police
found him, ticketless, sleeping
in a 2nd class waiting room
and tore the cardboard
box out of his hands and beat him
until the ink of his birth smudged
and surrendered its separate vowels.
In the great railyard of Milano
the dog with the white throat
and the soiled muzzle crossed
and recrossed the tracks
“searching for his master,”
said the boy, but his grandfather
said, “No, He was sent by G-d
to test the Italian railroads.”
When I lie down at last to sleep
inside a boxcar of coffins bound
for the villages climbing north
will I waken in a small station
where women have come to claim
what is left of glory? Or will
I sleep until the silver bridge
spanning the Mystic River jabs
me awake, and I am back
in a dirty work-shirt that says Phil,
24 years old, hungry and lost, on
the run from a war no one can win?
I want to travel one more time
with the wind whipping in
the open door, with you to keep
me company, back the long
tangled road that leads us home.
Through Flat Rock going east
picking up speed, the damp fields
asleep in the moonlight. You stand
beside me, breathing the cold
in silence. When you grip
my arm hard and lean way out
and shout out the holy names of the lost
neither of us is scared
and our tears mean nothing.
i still don’t have my hat
January 21st, 2008I am an American and I like lists.
1. I am elevated by my employment.
2. This month is almost over and I am very much looking forward to the end of it. The end of it.
3. I had an epic dream. Osiris appeared to me in a dream as a book. He asked me (with a tone that indicated if I chose incorrectly that there was impending doom looming) to look through our library shelves and find the best book of all time. I realized that the majority of expression that is readily available to us as information is no more than 500 years old. I couldn’t find a book before Alexandria, lest have the time to absorb it. Osiris laughed, because I had understood his point. I concluded that people relate to all forms of expression because of some sort of lack that is fulfilled, or some submission happens with nostalgia and desire. So, I went for a book that I had written. It was a non-traditional format and on the ribbons it was stitched, “the heated hills towards my umbilical cord”. He softened and went dim as if he had left the place. He puddled. I knew that if he was ever alive this would appeal to him. If he wasn’t (=myth), this would again relate to the both of them. I had passed the test. The rest of the dream was much more personal, however there was a part where Isis (taking the form of your ideal grandmother) told us that we had to hollow out our memory and by doing this we must unravel our knots and make sure that we cut the “shared memories” because math hasn’t figured out how to separate those as of yet.
4. We all know my (*most) art is so ephemeral. Plastic (the glorious greasy restaurant booth covers) will last thousands of years more than my expression. Should I be concerned with this? Should I work with bronze and plastic? I am more of a now person, I imagine. Entropy is forgiving. I say disintegrate away. My interaction with you is what matters.
7. I do not like waiting. Graduate acceptance/ denials are constantly weighing on my mind. I want this. I don’t want to leave this.
8. Look in the toy camera for some new photographs.
5. By the way , I miss you horribly. I miss all of my ghosts. I wish you were here so we could celebrate our mark-makings. Talk about the meanings of names. Categorize meaningfulness and meaninglessness and come to conclude that there isn’t a line between the two. I miss the bees that made me say ‘i hate you’. i miss the peaks and valleys of interactions. i miss the quiet of two individuals working together silently thrusting energy in one space. Thank you for taking care of me so compassionately when I had strep throat. You were kind and I haven’t found an equal to you, yet. Thank you for supporting my crappy portraits when it was really just shit. Thank you for thinking that my vastly ill-proportioned amount of emotion was moving. Why do I always miss you? Because, I believe, that we will always be connected. Circles on circles. Overlap and never fade. Not for me at least.
6. If the ethers will let me let me send my love via cables, and fiber optics, and even the phone lines… well here it is. My official hugs and kisses campaign.