i learned a couple of new things this week

first, some lessons about friendship, and giving, taking, and limitations

and the fact that having something that you truly believe in and make your own is a terrifying and beautiful thing to fight for.

Halfway home in the hilltop trees
and all our footprints in the snow
and the evening glow
leaving
Low night noise in the wintertime
I wake beside you on the floor
counting your
breathing
’cause I can’t see nothing in this half moon
lay me down if i should lose you

Halfway-working on a wornout house
and all our friends the ragged crows
and aching bones
whining
Where are we when the twilight comes?
the dark of valley and the breeze
and the frozen leaves
chiming
’cause I can’t see nothing in this half moon
lay me down if i should lose you…

From Iron & Wine's new album, Kiss Each Other Clean, comes this song, Half Moon.
Why do their songs always describe my life so well?

Click to enlarge

which is better, having your book burned or your newspaper photographs wrapped around dead fish and stuffed into packing boxes?

is it better to be ridiculed or forgotten?

you know what I like? walking at night with flashlights with enough people that you don't really need to be using a flashlight, but it's fun anyways and you can shine the flashlights in people's eyes.

that's what I like.

found poems

i've been thinking and seeing a lot of found poems recently- found poems being already written or published words altered- usually by marking the majority out- to create a new meaning.

brendan reposted all his found poems from last year on his wall, and with that idea fresh in my mind, i made one of my handouts into one during an especially boring photo ethics class today. the poem itself didn't say much, but it opened another room in this corridor, and started me thinking more.

there are photos that are much like this- nathan lyon's photos in his book notations of passing are much like this- he uses words on storefronts, bits of trash, and signs, and without moving them, composes them so that they say something completely new and different.

and so i say, if we can do this with pictures, can't we and don't we do this with memories? we cross out much of what we have thought and said and done in life and hold on to enough to read as a life- good or bad or inbetween. we write this poem to fit why we do what we do now- much of which will be crossed out anyways.

what does my life read like?

September 12- Iron and Wine
September 13- The horse flies
September 20- Ithaca

Things are looking very good for the month of September