masoschism

Dualism of mind and body
A tenuous, fatuous philosophy...
Yet the simplest technology
doth incite a natural schizophreny

Like the jarring experience of hearing your voice on tape
Sounding like NOBODY you know
Ugly and mawkish like a barbary ape
A sound you'd rather not show

The voice you've always heard
sounds pleasing to your ear
But that's an acoustic reality
no one else can hear

Or how our self-image is mirror-molded
(backwards in other words) like time slightly folded
Our photos to us look not quite right
but our friends see us with unadulterated sight

These harmless quirks magnified beyond cessation
Living in this culture of fear and alienation
Our looks hold the key to how we are treated
Whether we are loved, what respect we are ceded

Yet the corporeal is a cage
even for the gorgeous
The feeling of faking
The specter of loss
The fear that the world
will judge us by sight
and never see the REAL "you"
(or worse, that they might!)

Is this my body
Are these my knees?
Is that my fat??
Reintegrate me please!
How do i ask YOU to love me
when i lack that same skill?
How can i offer all of myself
when i'm an observer as well?

All this dualistic drivel
makes our self-image shrivel
Humynity's lost the art
of connecting by heart
Pure faith in oneself
leads to universal trust
To avoid self-destruction
reclaim that we must
For any stranger or sweetie truly comfy in their skin
can never help but let the whole world come in

tears actually

LOVE ACTUALLY
2003, directed by richard curtis

Update: I was mildly surprised to learn that some feminists hate this movie, and...you can't deny they're mostly right. The trope that posits wimyn are better seen and not heard, and that they exist to be "won" by a dynamic male? That critique has merit.

But i originally took this movie into my heart, not in spite of its occasional idiocy, but BECAUSE of that. It's a romantic comedy - doesn't one watch any rom-com with the presumption of idiocy? The fact that it's occasionally smart, wasn't the point either. I thought that in embracing a rom-com, any rom-com (something i'd almost never done), i would gain common ground with many wimyn. And perhaps thus increase my chances of getting laid.

An admittedly mercenary motivation...but underneath that was joy over the fact that this movie sometimes actually tells the truth about romance. Some people in this happy movie get CREAMED, with no reprieve, and i will always be grateful to the creators for that.

Plus...the most-vilified plotline, with the smitten best man showing love posters to his best friend's wife? That's one of my favorites - perhaps the only moment in cinematic history that speaks to my experience of the often stunningly-noble aspect of unrequited love.

Maybe you've never been there.

Is the film idiotic?

Of course.

Except when it's not. Can you say that about any other rom-com?

(original review)
I cried thrice in the past twenty-four hours, all while watching the movie LOVE ACTUALLY (or its special features). It's such a gentle miracle, crying, and i wonder whether i'll ever do so as much as i'd like. I've come a long way from my boys-don't-cry childhood, but still only cry once a month or less.
LOVE ACTUALLY, from the creators of NOTTING HILL and ABOUT A BOY, is wonderful. I've never seen a movie so happy and life-affirming you nearly forget that some characters don't find the love they need. We all muddle about, disappointing and hurting one another...and even when we get things right, there's a doomed longing to have love wrap us up and never leave.

Today's tears were while watching the deleted scenes, and a feature on the music (it's all wonderful, none more so than joni's new recording of "Both Sides Now"...the wisdom and sadness she precociously penned in her twenties are given heart-rending texture decades later). Not only should everyone add this movie to their holiday tradition, everyone should pester Universal to release a "deleted scenes/no-colin" version (um, that's colin the CHARACTER, not colin the actor). The cut scenes are often better than ones kept in. The commentary is delightful too.
Are there moments (and one entire colin plotline) that are forced and saccharine? Sure. But this movie also starkly reflects the pain we inflict on ourselves in the name of monogamy - jealousy, betrayal, denial...we put ourselves through agonizing spiritual contortions, trying to fit ourselves into a paradigm contrary to our nature. In the corners of this film, there might be tiny baby steps into a more enlightened future. Three plotlines (a spoiled rock star and his manager, a step-father and his child, and two adolescents) celebrate love itself, free of sexuality.
My tears remind me that this past year there have been two songs which have made me cry - paul simon's "Father and Daughter", and don henley's "Annabel". An insight into my lonely, grieving spirit...

I actually love...all of you. 

anthophilia

She sits her flower down

She sits on a bench

She noodles with her phone

My heart gives a wrench

There's a flower in running shorts!

I want to stand and cheer

You can find a flower in bloom

most any time of year

Burgundy flowers, pink flowers

beige, purple, red

Sigh, cry, happy til' i die

in a wildflower bed

Flowers fill my world

Such flower songs i've sung

Four billion flowers

and me with but one tongue!

musings on an online erotic poetry open mic

Blah blah words words...

Why so cynical? Some of these poems so so beautiful

Did i dream of skydiving dick-first into the host's home?

Did i hand-fuck myself for two hours without coming

waiting for permission from Ohio?

"Good boy". Thank you.

Do i avoid invoking the ones who really pushed my buttons?

The ones who might not be comfortable

with my blood pole pulsing for them

with dreams of penetration ovulation rainbow baby creation

Why do impractical, impossible impregnation fantasies

consume me?

Perhaps because if you're old enough and sensitive enough and MALE enough

your sexual history can seem a slaughtered sacrifice

Mortified by millennia of molestation and brutalization

by people who looked like YOU

So you've never leered, cat-called

or even really

flirted

But again...why so open mic cynical?

Because i always bristle at cozy or comfortable

That's how all poetry open mics hit me

Just pandering parrots

pressing literary buttons

to get the affirmation we all need

Avoiding anything truly fearless or fraught

Preach your progressive outrage at a Tea Party party!

But can i live up to my own standards?

Throughout the event

i resisted the temptation

to send a personal appreciation

to any poet who perked my libido

Were others less discreet?

If you could see a transcript

of the personally-sent event messages

wouldn't THAT be more entertaining

than the poems themselves?

And oh, how i rue

the day i learned what "pinning" can do

To enlarge any attendee without their knowing...

i don't want that temptation!

Like us all, i like to look at that i desire

Did i resist?

I did NOT

I pinned two performers not even performing

just to let my lust drink her in

Like a self-shamed addict with the DTs

i de-pinned within ten seconds

as though THAT made it less invasive

(while i dreamed of someone pinning me

on the sly)

That's the thing about objectification

Most of us love it

in the right context

But those shoals of shallowness

never far away

Why do i lust so faithfully

for the fit and fertile

Why are all others barely visible

to my broken, reptilian brain?

Next week: Is it possible to have a cock so anti-racist, it's racist?