I dream of hotel rooms the last two nights, and not nice luxurious ones. The dream I just woke from was a hiding dream. After being inexorably chased through a warehouse that rested low on an ocean's tossing and dirtied shoulder, an industrial space that I knew to be adjacent to a hospital (the knowledge of the sick slowing my flight), I arrived back at the hotel room. The room was reached through a hallway - with a high horizontal window on the back wall. When I began waking, I realized that I was sleeping between the window and the curtain to evade detection and enable quick escape should the room be entered through the hallway door. But, with retrospect, maybe I slept there for the view.
LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MYSELF
Because both Dad and Mom
Even the old midwife
In fact every single predictor
Bet that I'd be a boy
I tore out of the placenta determinedly a girl
Then
Because everybody regretted it
I became a boy
Then
Because everybody praised it
I became a girl
Then
Because everybody bullied me
I became a boy
When I came of age
Because my sweetheart was a boy
I had to be a girl
Then
Because everybody except my sweetheart
Talked about how I became a girl
I became a boy to everybody
Except to my sweetheart
Because I regretted being special to my sweetheart
I became a boy
Then because he said he wouldn't sleep with me
I became a girl
Meanwhile several centuries came to pass
This time
The poor caused a bloody revolution
And were being bossed around by a slice of bread
Therefore I became a medieval church
Saying love is the thing
I visited back alleys
Distributed old clothes and lumps of bread
Meanwhile several centuries came to pass
This time
God's land had come
And the rich and poor were great friends
So I hopped on a private helicopter
And scattered agitation leaflets
Meanwhile several centuries came to pass
This time
The bloody revolutionaries
Were kneeling before a rusted cross
I saw a fire of order in the disorder
So in the pub and in the den
Byron Musset
Villon Baudelaire
Hemingway girls in black pants
And I played cared drank
Talked nostalgically
About things like the libertines peculiar to the
Country in the East called Japan
And mainly
Made fun of things like
Simultaneity of love
Because both Dad and Mom
Even the old midwife
In fact everybody said I was a child prodigy
I was a cretin
Because everybody said I was a fool
I became an intellectual and set up residence somewhere behind
I didn't know what to do with my energy
When the rumor became widespread
That I was an intellectual somewhere behind
I began to walk out in the front
Was the same as my Dad and Mom's
I the pervert was confused
Was tormented because my reputation was at stake
And so
I became a good solid girl
I became a boy to my sweetheart
And wouldn't allow him to complain
Tomioka Taeko 1935-
From The Poetry of Postwar Japan, Ed. Kijima Hajime, University of Iowa Press, p 223-225
Because both Dad and Mom
Even the old midwife
In fact every single predictor
Bet that I'd be a boy
I tore out of the placenta determinedly a girl
Then
Because everybody regretted it
I became a boy
Then
Because everybody praised it
I became a girl
Then
Because everybody bullied me
I became a boy
When I came of age
Because my sweetheart was a boy
I had to be a girl
Then
Because everybody except my sweetheart
Talked about how I became a girl
I became a boy to everybody
Except to my sweetheart
Because I regretted being special to my sweetheart
I became a boy
Then because he said he wouldn't sleep with me
I became a girl
Meanwhile several centuries came to pass
This time
The poor caused a bloody revolution
And were being bossed around by a slice of bread
Therefore I became a medieval church
Saying love is the thing
I visited back alleys
Distributed old clothes and lumps of bread
Meanwhile several centuries came to pass
This time
God's land had come
And the rich and poor were great friends
So I hopped on a private helicopter
And scattered agitation leaflets
Meanwhile several centuries came to pass
This time
The bloody revolutionaries
Were kneeling before a rusted cross
I saw a fire of order in the disorder
So in the pub and in the den
Byron Musset
Villon Baudelaire
Hemingway girls in black pants
And I played cared drank
Talked nostalgically
About things like the libertines peculiar to the
Country in the East called Japan
And mainly
Made fun of things like
Simultaneity of love
Because both Dad and Mom
Even the old midwife
In fact everybody said I was a child prodigy
I was a cretin
Because everybody said I was a fool
I became an intellectual and set up residence somewhere behind
I didn't know what to do with my energy
When the rumor became widespread
That I was an intellectual somewhere behind
I began to walk out in the front
Was the same as my Dad and Mom's
I the pervert was confused
Was tormented because my reputation was at stake
And so
I became a good solid girl
I became a boy to my sweetheart
And wouldn't allow him to complain
Tomioka Taeko 1935-
From The Poetry of Postwar Japan, Ed. Kijima Hajime, University of Iowa Press, p 223-225
"The conquest of the superfluous gives us greater spiritual excitement than the conquest of the necessary. (Hu)man is a creature of desire, not a creation of need" Psychoanalysis of Fire. Gaston Bachelard, pg. 17
Intersectionality Matters, a Review of Mel Chen's book Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect by Melissa Haynes. Also many links to explore from there... Othered Human/OOO connection?
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