Miscellaneous creative compilations.
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Concluding Candidacy Video – Not So Still Life
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Last night I dreamt of
Being enrolled in
a contemporary dance class.
It was new and the fit…
uncomfortable.
Virgin sandals squeaking on floors.
We started moving, holding
this limb or that
steady
The rest performing around
quickly. s.l.o.w.ly.
There was a bodily attraction
keeping me in the hazy
space – time – energy.
She branded my arm.
The flesh seared memories.
Thin lines from white hot metal
An arrow? A steel paint scraper.
Assembled into a thicker line. of flight.
I stayed. I moved. I swayed. I was kinetic.
To write a story of embodiment, I should know the body better.
I better know the body.
Which body/ies?
I don’t remember breathing in my dreams.
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Time is a shadow,
impossible to frame.
A writer’s retreat in this
Cabin hand-hewn
100 years past.
Screens diffusing light
Millions years old
Around this ten
Foot oaken table.
40 years and my
Queer body
Wonders what it
Embodies while a
Murder of crows caw.
Orientations to not so
Ordinary monuments
Strewn about, exceeding
Their shelf life.
Steps are steps on this
Indulgent quest for –
what was it exactly?
Oh yes, questions.
But first, we eat.
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VII for XI+ Years
I. Fluffy fleece bags enfold precious artworks formed with love and intent. Organized chaos reigns as 30 third graders learn math with kinesthetics. The grant process spills from my fingers as fingers make board packets with different pastel papers for different reports.
II. I drive around and around downtown for parking, for 11 years. $0.25 for 20 minutes for the City. In by 9am for $9 daily for the Corporation. I drive around and around Ohio, for hours. Meetings at schools and libraries and offices. Collaborating, partnering, serving governance bodies of all kinds, fleshy bodies of all abilities.
III. In/formal evaluations. In/direct numbers served. Handbooks. Quickbooks. Character counts. 5325#. admin1986. Z-drive.
IV. Carboard boxes, plastic tubs, paper programs, liquid water, breath mints, pens, etc. wobble on the 15-ish-year-old black metal folding cart. The elastic band so exhausted I wonder at its capacity to hold anything just as it snaps back onto my fingers (again).
V. I pace and sweat before people show up to events. I mingle at all the events wearing dresses or ties. I run away from everyone to escape for 120 seconds of fresh air during events. I take deep breaths and sips of wine after (and during) events.
VI. My office, in the bowels of a government building, shared with a theatre’s scene shop. Saw dust and turpentine when the elevator doors open. By noon, they are already part of me.
VII. A heart bursts with joys, a mind vacillates with preoccupations, a body flows with imbalances.
*Inspired by the writing of Joanna Penn Cooper (2017) Seven for Today
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Three Rivers:
float on your back in a lake
water laps over skin
the breeze picks up
lifting over your knees
you know then how a
million years soothed
a boulder’s skin