Charnel Ground (II)

Anna Halprin says that before she became sick with cancer she ”lived to make art,” but when her cancer went into remission she “made art to live”

My father had to have imaging done on his prostate today, to make a 3D model for upcoming surgery; my mom’s school system is being gutted again, as it has been routinely since I was in elementary school

These austerity plans ‘bring the war home’, evidence of how we don’t choose to live, how we have chosen death over life

Thinking of the opening shot of Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice, I wonder what it would be like if everyone cared for just one thing every day

A tree, a little plot of land—one can imagine this on a considerably larger scale

Home care for one’s parents is becoming more common in our current economic climate

Conversely, in increasing numbers adult children have been moving back in with their parents

Halprin diagnosed her cancer through imaging, drawing; she exorcized it through dance

Can the poem also diagnose?

The only thing bourgeois about dying is that we presume our life to be more important than anyone else’s, more worthy of mourning

(Hard not to feel that way obviously with friends, lovers, family)

There is nothing “banal” about suicide, Cassandra writes me

When I met with Bruce years ago he told me about how he cared for Philip Whalen in hospice, and how Whalen had a dream about “Clorox,” which he interpreted as the old Taoist “uncarved block,” returning him to a state of being before experience, all his bad feelings cleansed

Against myths of autonomy, patients of history, the world could be our hospital

Wanting everyone to die right so we can all live right

Replacing the pronouns isn’t the only problem

It is a symptom, like discourse fails to encounter

Like it can't understand how we feel our consent

Write like you are in hospice—imminently cared for.

—composed spring 2012-present, for my parents