2003 Bye Bye Beaute

The flickering out, the flaming up, arising, arising; and soothsayers and truth tellers and liars play together, they throw the ball back and forth from one to another; and it's this moment to crave something sweet, something that melts on the tongue; something to forget the moment with - something to never leave this moment.

Want to erase the past only to relive it later on?
Want another salutation for every enemy not born yet, not yet created, or perhaps already burned out, flamed away, finished?

Want to be seen as dusk invades and the sun is diminished? As stars burst forth, as moon departs, as skies vanish and there is a cold silence?

Nights are loud lately. Nights are frozen in place, they are static, they are endless. Night talks without an echo. Night warmth in the absence of light or touch or sound.





Want to be cool? Want to be hot? Want to want to want to some nights?

Want to move?
Want to create or perhaps, disintegrate?

Want to dance to the sneakerpimps in a crowded room alone?
Alone. Alone. Lone. One. Nil.

Step up, turn, love is just a blood sport... dance, bend three different ways one after another, feel the dark weigh in on flesh, light cut in and take the lead, take your hands, force your eyes shut, force movement without sight, rely on feeling only, on guts, on instinct, on intuition, on fantasies and dreams.

On lies. Lies. I. Lie. I lie to you. Lie to me. Lie me down. Tie me up. Lie to tie you down. Die. Die for awhile only to wake up.

Make the bed a hundred thousand times, unmake it, break it, make it, tie your self to it, marry yourself to it; undo, redo, undo, redo; keep the circle moving.

Stay rounded up. Stay above the other heads. Be aware. Awake. Alive with your eyes shut, with your soul on, with your mind succinct with the back beats, the strobe lights, the dizzying heat, the aches of someone else's pain awhile.

Numb me with a drink, numb me with a lie, I want someone else to die this time. I want you to hurt so I can stop thinking about myself. Hit me, hit me, hit me hard, make me forget. Aren't we all here for a mingling of regret? Aren't we all here to forget?

Aren't we here for blood, for warmth, for something as fleeting as identity.

Baby, be my man, be my flash in the pan. My opposite, be my twin.

Come undone, help me destroy myself. Help me claw my way back up.
Help me hurt you, help me help you, hurt you, help you, hurt you.

I don't want to know you, I don't want to know myself, I don't want to know the world, I don't want to know your story.

I want liquid life, I want white knuckled survival, I want clarity to cut myself with, I want knowledge to scar me, I want another stoic moment to help me turn away faster, further, furiously.



Don't you know by now I like the cold? I am it. It owns me.
It's freedom turned icy.
It's my everything.

capri, italy, 1998

The solitary espresso in Capri, sitting at the tiny, empty cafe in silent awe
of a small funeral procession rounding the corner before me and stopping
beneath the 15th century church only several feet from me in the small piazza.
That moment stretched on into a dream state. I felt completely a tourista,
a witness, some mute observer.


The hearse stopped it's movement and the mourners got out of the miniature vehicle to cross themselves below the church and exchange tiny ball-like yellow flowers. The casket was carried by solemn pallbearers and the family followed them down the steps out of the old church. I sat and stared, afraid to move and shatter this peek into
such an intimate moment: this ceremony of death, of mourning, of burial.


The church bell rang precisely at that moment and its eerie, hollow ringing
sounded forlorn in the wind. The casket was carried into the back of the
Italian hearse and the family entered the car. Some of the mourners walked
up a cobble stoned road up to Anacapri in the same direction of the hearse.
I wanted to follow them, to see further into their traditions, into their lives.

I wanted to know them, but secretly.


I wanted to pack my belongings, or to give them up entirely and stay in Italia and never leave. I wanted to live in some simple little flat and open Dutch windows every morning and breathe in the warm Italian sun and eat fresh oranges and lemons before a long walk in the green country side or a stroll on the seaside. I wanted to take photographs of faces and eyes of real people... people who were alive, who were unapologetically themselves. I wanted an old fashioned black typewriter to write on and to type out strange stories.


I wanted to make love in white sheets, in a white room with wooden floors that creaked. I wanted to learn how to make Roman artichokes and aubergenes and lather olive oil on my hair and face and body at night and take honey baths in a large white old tub. I wanted to dance in a black dress with red hair in a piazza while Italian jazz musicians or wild-eyed gypsy's played reminiscent tunes and I felt like the barefoot Contessa. I wanted the world to be cinematic but real in only the way a movie
could appear real. I wanted to wake in a foreign land with another language on the tip of my tongue and a new day, very different from any I had known before, ahead of me. I wanted the impossible. I wanted the dream. But sometimes dreams spring forth into fruition.