It’s a Saturday night amidst the final throes of winter, slushy snow covers the medians and parks, but I’m thinking of throwing a picnic next weekend. I’m standing in the crowd at the Apohadion, watching Cheap City play their last Portland show ever. Red Eft is up next with some (to me) new material, I’d got here just in time to see Angusisdead close out their opening set with a rendition of “Home on the Range”. I’d hustled downhill from Cumberland Ave where I was seeing a homecoming set by Ruune (playing as Bentabia Beacon Bezalel) and Windier’s new lineup, complete with a choir to finish out the show a la Mount Eerie’s “Singers”. I’ll buy many CDs at both shows as I’d both ended my spotify subscription months prior, and recently went to a planning board meeting for a proposed Live Nation owned venue downtown, producing a mix of communal connection and anxiety for Portland’s music scene in me.
So I was at two shows on a Saturday night, watching friends and strangers crane their necks in singing and thrash their bodies in creative passion. Collaboration and imagination brought them onto these small stages, playing music for people that know their lives and don’t, and they probably felt nervous or unsure of how it would go and maybe they’d even had moments of realizing everything would be all right because it’s inevitably about a bit of vulnerability anyways, and everyone in the audience knew that on some level too. It all collided in my head with the opening of Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice (tried to watch the previous evening, only got through two scenes before realizing I should sleep), 10 minutes of two men and a child wandering through a seaside field in Sweden, filmed from a distance, as well as a Wallace Shawn essay I’d read weeks prior where he talks about the source of vulnerability he pulls from as an actor, and how he feels it allows actors to truly see how easy it would be for the world to be radically different, we’re all just wearing costumes and living by a script after all. The insight’s in these two thoughts, to be a person pretending in a field while someone films you from yards away, and to cultivate vulnerability and possibility so consistently that you understand that it’s hidden in everyone, mixed with seeing people I know embody this creative openness in our community, it all finally gave me a shove or slap that said “write something, put it somewhere, show people, rinse repeat”.
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Now answering that call by posting on Substack feels a bit silly. These internet platform avenues feel cheap and hollow at times for exhibiting artistic expression. Like an art gallery set up in a mall kiosk. But even that art in a kiosk is helping someone practice vulnerability, it just becomes a problem when that art is only shown in kiosks. Substack was founded by tech guys, not creatives. The company got in hot water last year for maintaining an alleged “no censorship” stance that has allowed white supremacists to utilize the platform for spreading their views. They were also propositioned with a buyout by Musk in 2023, which they turned down for now. That’s all to say it is, as usually, blisteringly clear how this is yet another platform that does not have the interests of its users, or artists in general, at heart. You are reading my writing within the confines of a sort of online mall (I borrow the analogy from Ben Tarnoff). We are indeed at the mall kiosk right now, lets just promise each other that we won’t stay here for long. Not to mention, this kiosk we call Substack will inevitably be consumed by the venture capital that jumpstarted it. For the time being though, I find it somewhat more useful than the alternatives.
I feel very inspired by the newsletters I follow on here (my friend Cam has a great one that was ultimately the catalyst to me writing this now years later), but I’m not sure if that’s an avenue I’d pursue consistently. I imagine I will post poetry and maybe the occasional short fiction and talk about life or my process in between those. Speaking of which I’ll share some old poetry here for the sake of giving it a spot outside my notebooks.
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I wrote this one along with two others for a little zine I threw together for Night Market back in 2023. The three of them (“Where we are”, “Where we were”, “Where we’re going”) were kind of just me playing with talking to the reader, specifically about the event we were both experiencing. I liked this one the most because I’m a sucker for short rhyming poems.
Where We’re Going
Life changes
Rearranges
Never the same person twice
Moving on
Another yawn
Still, we always try
Remember this day
Stay blown away
Through dark nights of thunder
Your world will expand
Even if you just stand
Oo-ing and ah-ing in wonder.
This next one I wrote for Harvest Party 2024 (a beautiful yearly party my friends Adam and Ange put on). Essentially everyone contributes a dish or song or whatever and the most beloved contribution gets the “Bringer of Bounty” crown and everything. It’s very sweet. You might be asking why I would share a contribution so tied to the experience of this party between friends. Well if I had won Bringer of Bounty this poem would stay in my journal to be cherished only as a memory for the rest of my days. But I didn’t win it (a frankly incredible song inspired by The Brothers Grimm did), so why can’t I get some more attention from it, huh?
Friendship is a fruit of harvest When the time comes We are both bulb in the earth And hands plunging into soil Lifted into a wider, sunlit world Speckled, never judged Only appreciated and coveted Held by another, held by ourselves We harvest and are in turn harvested Digging each other out into new life These fruits do not fall from the sky They require: Patience of the sower Diligence of the rain Warmth of the sun So we look around the room Or out into golden plots A bountiful field, A friends smile All a mirror of quartz
This next one is a poem I only really shared on a side Instagram account like 5 years ago (why was this a thing). I like the rhythm of it though and it’s one of those that I reread every once in a while.
Thread Spinning Lepidium at daybreak Hummock that we grew up on Morphology of the rock wall In the woods I took a picture here In this warm spot Four years before i lived Six blocks away That rendered Horse of polygons Hoof planted In the wet beach sand Which is only numbers after all I’m busy watching this So I’ll call you in a bit We’ll talk again in a week And three days Once the children are asleep You’ll spend your time Rubbing hands on denim Fingernail picking At hangnail What am I thinking? Of ambivalent pressure, Uncommitted hatred, And of course the pain In our muscles Until then Check out the rooftops, The game of pass, And the bay window that Will never be
Lastly, I’ll share a couple that I wrote the other day. Thanks for reading!
Hands Cradle Head
On my dry hands
Blue ink of ideas
Wart patch
Steamed bath
And a waddling
cat
In my head
Old faces
Important tasks
Dreams rubbed raw
Like pate of buddha, sit tall
Within my phone
Unfocused swirl
Exhaustive list
Warm fires
And stole soul silhouettes
Like figures on a hillside
Strange and concerning
Familiar and full
of possibility
In hands in head
Saw myself in another
Her distance was mine
Her clinging to strangers
Lackadaisical twirling
Past future
present yearning
It was all mine
Reflected by a being
Of molten
Glass burning
Unknowably vast
Eyes tricked me
Cast me as a unique
Subterranean beast
Gazing upon spinning
Shining beauties
In the sun
But I am one
too. Yet the only
way to see me
is in the eyes
of you
Currently listening to: Joni Mitchell's "Hejira" in the car, Baths' "Gut" from the phone, Squeeze's "East Side Story" at home
Currently reading: Jenny Hval's "Paradise Rot" and churning through final pages of Zinn's "A Peoples History..."