scholarship is the enemy of romance

When I was in highschool and was a goalie for the (varsity! woah!) field hockey team, there was a a tiny note of graffiti on the back of the goal that real:





"the only way to beat temptation is to yield to it."





I've kept those words of wisdom with me all these years, one of the few tidbits of knowledge passed down to me that I actually retained. So, here I am at my work, drinking too much coffee and trying to finish a paper that is due in a few hours. I am distracted. I am distracted every day because I have what some call "the poet's eye." Even when I was younger I saw through these glasses, and called trees elephants. Not because I was confused, but because I saw the direct relationship, the comparisons between their skins, their ancient potential, the unspoken wisdoms we feel in their presense. I see the surface of things, and then dissect, destroy with too much epic detail, expose things to themselves. But it's all beauty. I see only greatness these days. There is horror but I avert my eyes because by my side always is a kingdom.





I fall asleep smiling, I wake up smiling. I cannot think because my smile has permeated my brain and dug its roots in too deeply, the corners of my mouth like fish hooks. It's cold again and I am warm; it's begun to snow and I don't care. I ride my bike and my face hurts, my jaw twitches in the muggy frost, busted joints swelling. And still I think only of the moon shining into the attic window in a Lawrenceville apartment at midnight, the futile attempts at sleep.





I wake up too early, open my eyes, see the face of kindness gazing mercifully upon me. Living is a difficult thing. This is what I think about when I try to write twenty pages on gender-complimentarity. How we compliment each other so well. The spinetingle of holding hands, the lightheadedness of a single kiss. This is how every previous partner has told me I was feeling, and I agreed because I did not know. This is seeing the color purple for the first time, the true purple of a flower.





I am seronaded in the morning and feel dizzy all the time. I cannot write my paper. Romance is the enemy of scholarship. When we battle ourselves, we win. My heart has swollen to my head. Amore, amore, April 16th.

vienna v. 2.0

Viennese Tourism in the Off Season

Vienna if secrets were to slice you open, the guts of you might

stain those white walls, the park where children play by day, throwing

tennis balls in the cold cloudless morning, polished streets flooded with

red tide. Even the silkiest coats reveal an animal when skinned.

Streets at 9pm are as empty as a threat as electric

as a premonition. A step off a bus into new country Austria, no place

yet to sleep but looking, sneakers silent on thawing sidewalks, eyes

wide but not knowing how to look, not understanding what to see—

buildings High Gothic forever goose-stepping out of line of tanks, history

gone missing, eggy moon haloed glowing through thin clouds.

I'm festering, scattered and undetermined -- full bladder filling the space

where my spirit of adventure normally sits. U-Bahn station, West Vienna,

bathroom free and open, harmless and normal and behind a door of infinity.

Inside, the wrists of the city are slit and eternal.



Blood on the walls dripping dripping sprayed a mist

blood on tiles wadded soggy paper crusted bloated bloated

in the sink yellow sticky something needles wrappers

in the toilet blood syringes blood a future blood disease

on the mirror smeared hope smeared past blood blood—

Door opens, universe halted, eyes span room and new reality, I walk in exploded

this is life somewhere, this is everyday people for someone and maybe

I just missed a murder, maybe the body was just dragged off, maybe there is

an old friend convulsing on harsh Viennese sidewalk somewhere, hiding

from the neon, tucked away behind the subway station, U-Bahn,

maybe it’s hard for people to be ok ok in a world so pockmarked with history.



Streets outside glowing hot pink and green, soft

neon, deep sea florescents pooling through thick night air.

Inside somehow darker. Inside walls collapsing with heavy fate rupturing

pipes and weeping through lead paint.



The door tin dented like kicked like fought like locked in

my blank stare back at myself, pants down, squatting don’t sit don’t even look!

Needles by my feet needles piercing pupils staring staring can’t stop looking



I am an apparition of myself. I am my ghost staring back, the piss stain, the historic

truth found— If there was a murder it could be me and could happen as easily

as a clock chiming, as 10pm hitting, as a bladder giving way. My blank stare

back at myself and I am not longer what I once saw.

Vienna what have you done to yourself?

Vienna where are your girls?

Is your washroom breeding Bolsheviks or viruses, heroines or heroin addicts?



Blood sticking to sneakers seeping in through rubber sticking spots

red red black red damp crusting fresh old--



Veins impaled with hidden truths of culture, fate behind closed

doors, the unlocked public bathrooms and maybe it was only

a secret to me. A thing the travel agencies choose to leave

out, like the inflated cost of soda, the slaughter of the underclass.

Even the silkiest animals dye their fur coats red when slit.

Outside the prostitutes shiver under early March street lights,

cars drive by and no one honks, not even whistles,

high heels click like calling a horse, click like

not running away, click like light switches turning on

in subway station bathrooms, thousands of hidden realities in this dark Spring.