there will be no end soon

Untitled, Pembroke, Virginia

Some folks inherit star-spangled eyes

Untitled (Save-A-Lot Parking Lot), Pulaski, VA

Money is like us in time, it lies, but can't stand up

Untitled (Pawn Country), Pearisburg, VA

i see progress in paint peeling...

Untitled, Pulaski, VA

3 poems by Rilke

THE WAIT

It is life in slow motion,
it's the heart in reverse,
it's a hope-and-a-half:
too much and too little at once.

It's a train that suddenly
stops with no station around,
and we can hear the cricket,
and, leaning out the carriage

door, we vainly contemplate
a wind we feel that stirs
the blooming meadows, the meadows
made imaginary by this stop.

CHILDHOOD

It would be good to give much thought, before
you try to find words for something so lost,
for those long childhood afternoons you knew
that vanished so completely -and why?

We're still reminded-: sometimes by a rain,
but we can no longer say what it means;
life was never again so filled with meeting,
with reunion and with passing on

as back then, when nothing happened to us
except what happens to things and creatures:
we lived their world as something human,
and became filled to the brim with figures.

And became as lonely as a sheperd
and as overburdened by vast distances,
and summoned and stirred as from far away,
and slowly, like a long new thread,
introduced into that picture-sequence
where now having to go on bewilders us.

AGAIN AND AGAIN, HOWEVER WE KNOW THE LANDSCAPE OF LOVE

Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky.

i see nothing to be gained by any explanation. there are no words that need to be said.

West Main Street from Peak Creek Mercantile, Pulaski, VA

YESTERDAY DOWN AT THE CANAL
--Frank O'Hara

You say that everything is very simple and interesting
it makes me feel very wistful, like reading a great Russian novel
does

i am terribly bored
sometimes it is like seeing a bad movie
other days, more often, it's like having an acute disease of the
kidney

god knows it has nothing to do with the heart
nothing to do with people more interesting than myself
yak yak
that's an amusing thought
how can anyone be more amusing than oneself
how can anyone fail to be
can I borrow your forty-five
I only need one bullet preferably silver
if you can't be interesting at least you can be a legend
(but I hate all that crap)

DEER AMONG CATTLE
--James Dickey

Here and there in the searing beam
Of my hand going through the night meadow
They all are grazing

With pins of human light in their eyes.
A wild one also is eating
The human grass,

Slender, graceful, domesticated
By darkness among the bred-
for-slaughter,

Having bounded their paralyzed fence
And inclined his branched forehead onto
Their green frosted table,

The only live thing in this flashlight
Who can leave whenever he wishes,
Turn grass into forest,

Foreclose inhuman brightness from his eyes
But stands here, unperturbed,
In their wide-open country,

The sparks from my hand in his pupils
Unmatched anywhere among cattle,

Grazing with them the night of the hammer
As one of their own who shall rise.

I started out in search of ordinary things, like how much of a tree bends in the wind

Fairlane, Pulaski, VA

some favorite films--

Dead Man
Arizona Dream
Badlands
Days of Heaven
George Washington
All the Real Girls
Blue Velvet
Wild At Heart
The Straight Story
My Own Private Idaho
Junebug
Paris, Texas
Stroszek
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
The Devil, Probably
Cockfighter
Jesus' Son
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Walkabout
The Big Lebowski
Without Limits: The Steve Prefontaine Story

Your heart is a hungry hunter, your mind is a lonely target

Rust, Pulaski, VA

--from "Light Warrior"
Eileen Myles

My name means Light Warrior when you bring it home to the present day through Latin and Gaelic. I am a significant person, maybe a saint, or larger than life. I hear that you judge a saint by her whole personality, not just her work. I'm beginning to see my work as my shadows, less and less necessary, done with less and less care. I see my existence as similar to that of a sundial's when I simply stand, and slowly the notion of movement is suggesting itself to my consciousness and action is also appropriate in the realm of the saint, the character who begins her life in the windows of a church, in the religious air of her own imagination until history lines up with her nature, and the path becomes clear--the storms of identity erupt and implode and gather again and one of life's soldiers realizes her whole basis for living has changed and now she is impelled forward in a new film.

--the rest of "Light Warrior" and more great writing can be found at at www.eileenmyles.net.

She said you can't serve two masters, I said I serve three

Pure, Pulaski, VA

--Flannery O'Connor, from "Why Do the Heathen Rage?"

Often she came behind him and found some strange underlined passage in a book he had left lying somewhere and she would puzzle over it for days. One passage she found in a book he had left lying on the upstairs-bathroom floor stayed with her ominously.

Love should be full of anger, it began, and she thought, well mine is. She was furious all the time. It went on, Since you have already spurned my request, perhaps you will listen to admonishment. What business have you in your father's house, O you effeminate soldier? Where are your ramparts and trenches, where is the winter spent at the front lines? Listen! the battle trumpet blares from heaven and see how our General marches fully armed, coming amid the clouds to conquer the whole world. Out of the mouth of our King emerges a double-edged sword that cuts down everything in the way. Arising finally from your nap, do you come to the battlefield! Abandon the shade and seek the sun.

She turned back in the book to see what she was reading. It was a letter from St. Jerome to Heliodorus, scolding him for having abandoned the desert. A footnote said that Heliodorus was one of the famous group that had centered around Jerome at Aquileia in 370. He had accompanied Jerome to the Near East with the intention of cultivating a hermetic life. They had seperated when Heliodorus continued on to Jerusalem. Eventually he returned to Italy, and in later years he became a distinguished churchman as the bishop of Altinum.

This was the kind of thing he read--something that made no sense for now. Then it came to her, with an unpleasant little jolt, that the General with the sword in his mouth, marching to do violence, was Jesus.

Well, you know what happens after dark, when rattlesnakes lose their skins and their hearts

Owls, West Main Apts, Pulaski, VA

I was browsing Barnes and Noble's magazine rack recently and noticed Lou Reed guest designed the latest issue of Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope: All Story. The issue includes several of Reed's photos, many of which are quite good.

youtube video for Reed's "Andy's Chest"

It's the broken, faded bird you've learned to call your heart

Cleo's Closet 1, Pulaski, VA
Cleo's Closet 2, Pulaski, VA
Cleo's Closet 3, Pulaski, VA

Bill Withers "Lean on Me" Live

It's a doggy, dog world

Both Photos, Pulaski, VA

I also met a few of the 4-legged residents of Pulaski during Sunday's walk. The bottom dog followed me around a half-mile or so, but every time I tried to approach him to read the tag, he shyly backed away.

Some Dog Songs
Nina Nastasia "It's A Dog's Life," Dylan "If Dogs Run Free," Sonic Youth "I Want To Be Your Dog," Paul Simon "Rene and George Magritte With Their Dog After The War," Ween "Fluffy," Hank Williams "Move It On Over," Neil Young "Old King"," Snoop Dogg "Who Am I? (What's My Name?)"

They'll zip you up and dress you down and stand you in a row, but you know you don't have to, you can just say no

Jarrod and Thomas, Pulaski, VA

We had decent weather this past Sunday, and I had my first opportunity in months to photograph Pulaski, one of my favorite places to photograph (and where I now call home). Inspired in part by Tema Stauffer's recent portraits of young men around Binghamton, NY and Austin, TX, I decided to ask some of the people I met while walking if I could photograph them. When I first started taking photos I routinely photographed people, but for the last year or so I mostly haven't asked anyone. Now that I'm in Pulaski, though, I plan to use photography as a way to get to know the place and the people who live there better. At some point, I may get some of the people to write or tell me stories that I can include with the photos on the blog.

I met the two teenagers above during the first 1/2 mile or so of my walk. They seemed somewhat concerned when I asked them if I could photograph them, and in general they were kind of quiet and shy. I would've liked to learn more about them, but I didn't want to press it. Later in the day I saw them skateboarding off a loading dock behind one of the old buildings in town. I thought about approaching them, maybe offering to take photos of their skateboarding moves and give them prints. I probably should have, but I suppose I'm kind of shy, too. And I didn't want to make them uncomfortable by suddenly reappearing, a mile or so down the road from where I had initially photographed them.

I met several other folks while walking, but most of them didn't want to be photographed. One particulary interesting guy who declined my request was leaning back against a block of concrete outside Budget Inn, smoking a cigarette and drinking a Full-Throttle energy drink while he waited for a taxi. He was wearing faded jeans, a harley-davidson t-shirt featuring a scantily clad lady leaning over a motorcyle, and a truckstop dreamcatcher for a necklace. He was a big guy, probably about 6' 2" or so, and his long silver hair was pulled back into a pony tail. When I asked if I could take his photo, he gave me a quick, incredulous glance and replied,"Heelll No. Have you watched America's Most Wanted lately?" I believe he was joking, but I wasn't entirely sure. I talked to the guy (I never did get his name) for 10 minutes or so, but I didn't say much. Mostly he talked and I nodded my head. I would've liked to ask him about the dreamcatcher...maybe another day.

The photo above--and the others I took--didn't turn out all that well.In hindsight, I should've had the boys stand somewhere with a little less behind them to distract. I should've also probably used a shallower depth-of-field and stood a little closer to draw attention to the boys, and it's undoubtedly obvious I didn't shoot the photo in black and white. After I looked at the shot on the computer, however, I decided I liked it better with the black/white conversion (even though there's almost no tonal range). All of the shortcomings of my own shots make me appreciate photographers who do portraits well all the more.

When on and off collide, we'll set our souls aside and walk away

Yes/No, Pulaski, VA

The Silver Jews final performance, January 31, 2009, Cumberland Caverns, TN

"Think about it. If you're stuck. Say no."
--David Berman

Berman's introductory remarks and the song the band opened with--"We Are Real"--made me think of Melville's "Bartelby, The Scrivener." In an interview for Tanglewood Numbers, Berman quoted Shopenhauer, saying there are only two possible paths in life: loneliness or vulgarity. Up to that point, he said, he'd chosen loneliness, but after his overdose he realized that route was a dead end. Now that he's decided that writing/performing music may also be a sort of dead letter office, it will be interesting to see where Berman turns. It's certainly something I've given thought to: how to say no while still saying yes, to disappear or slip through the cracks without ending up like Bartleby. I suppose I've always favored art (or, as callow as it may sound, life as art). But if that proves inadequate, what then? To a degree, I think Melville's story is a parable about faith and doubt (loneliness and vulgarity?). And for those inclined to wrestle with such things, the choices may be between Melville's Bartleby or Beckett's Unnamable. But I'm neglecting the music. And things aren't so unbearable when there's music.