State of the valkyrie

(Not actually an exercise post.)

I am not dead, despite my poor showing on LiveJournal. 2013 has been a hell of year so far, emotionally. January (and December before it) were fraught, February and March were delightful--so much so, in fact, that they nearly culminated with my passing out from exhaustion at SXSW, as previously recounted. April decided to live up to Eliot after all, and became an emotional roller coaster that left me in a ditch. Lacking any forgetful snow, I can only hope that summer surprises me.

On the upside, I've spent the past three months seeing more concerts than I had previously imagined possible. My brain may have swollen under the constant application of new music--SXSW, Convergence, Austin Psych Fest, and a host of other shows. Last week was Peter Murphy (doing an all Bauhaus set). Tomorrow is The Joy Formidable and Io Echo. I've danced more than ever, and I already dance more than nearly anyone I know.

On Thursday morning I leave for Portland, and the H.P. Lovecraft Film Fest & CthulhuCon, where I will be reading, participating in a panel, and melting into a gibbering puddle of glee at the director's cut of Nightbreed. If you happen to sit next to me in the theatre, I apologize in advance for deliquescing on your shoes.

When I get back from Portland I'm going to lock myself in alternately my room and my favorite coffee shop and write a damned book.

Poetry month

More Octavio Paz. Only a snippet this time, from "Sunstone" (Piedra de Sol)...

there is nothing inside me but a large wound,
a hollow place where no one goes,
a windowless present, a thought that returns
and repeats itself, reflects itself,
and loses itself in its own transparency,
a mind transfixed by an eye that watches
it watching itself till it drowns itself
in clarity:

I saw your horrid scales,
Melusina, shining green in the dawn,
you slept twisting between the sheets,
you woke shrieking like a bird,
and you fell and fell, till white and broken,
nothing remained of you but your scream,
and I find myself at the end of time
with bad eyes and a cough, rummaging through
the old photos:

there's no one, you're no one,
a heap of ashes and a worn-out broom,
a rusted knife and a feather duster,
a pelt that hangs from a pack of bones,
a withered branch, a black hole,
and there at the bottom the eyes of a girl
drowned a thousand years ago,