two things

quickly, before I forget

1. The Subject

A sadness makes me think about love. Even when love is not the subject. Even when I am not the subject. But what if it’s not love I’m preoccupied with, what if it is art? What if all the love in me is art? And what if all the loving, all the concern, is for and in the interest of the art? And what if the art is for nothing? No, that can’t be right. If it were, I would jump off a building. And I won’t. Instead, I stare at a document. There’s something in it. I walked with someone recently who said something beautiful about making art and not making art, which is the necessary precursor to making art. But I can’t remember the words exactly just that they gave me hope, and settled me. And a few days later I went to a talk where two authors confirmed everything this person on the walk had told me about making art or not making art and I thought wow, I really do need the love of others as much as I need to love them and so I am destined for all this that comes before the art and which the art requires.

2. all I can do

   is be myself
   is be a representation of the self
   a reference to the self
   an amalgamation of selves 
   I cannot 
   serve or predict 
   I can only
   pour out from the 
   pitcher of the self 
   and out goes the liquid of my
   personality and history and fears 
   and desires and back into another
   pitcher—also me 
   and it’s not enough, no
   it’s never enough 
   the pitcher or the liquid
   or maybe the liquid is too much 
   and the wrong temperature 
   for the pitcher 
   and the pitcher too narrow at the mouth 
   but, I tell myself,
   none of that is your concern
   you are not in the business of 
   metrics, your only unit being
   the spirit—the anti-chamber
   the only portal being the one 
   that fills and empties at once 
   that does so relentlessly
   and with hope