The Charm Of Making

Songs and stories of infraction. I need to tender my heart, huge and weevil-addled, unfurling in wind. A demon ache. A love. If there is a love in me, may it swirl forth. I am unproduced. This is the stuff of silliness and myth. Whatever me there is begins with a goof and continues with death. The outline of my body in time. The digital wisp of night in the internet.

Calamities

It strikes me that I was replacing how much I missed you with how much I wanted her. But she was the stand-in for how much I wanted to rescue myself, like the old sea turtle. I watched her lay eggs in the sand, 85 years old and still trying to save her species, still willing to swim the high seas, through oil slicks and past the ghosts of battleships.

Restive Nocturne Two

I had your favorite music playing while I twisted her. It was the best. She was in love with me and I was in love with the you in her. And none of us was actually there. 

It was the perfect seance. Cherubs crushed their faces against her windows, trying to get out. It's been years and I can only write about it now. Because I am in time, but not of it. 

And time recalls me, works me back to those cracking moments with little bruises and short breaths. Eyes were on me and I didn't know how to do spring in autumn. It was okay to be alive, but not okay to want. In this nocturne, I'm counting the faces of my former selves like beads on a rosary. 

Your arms were long and I was in the rain. We turned wishes into earthquakes, chuckling away while the world fell.

Let X

--after Laurie Anderson

Then we went where two rivers met. We saw how we held hands the first time and laughed. We saw ourselves in pictures and stepped off the canyon edge into a willing sky. We flew for a while and knew every blue flower. This was all the roughness before civilization. We had to make complete cuts, meaning nothing and nothing again. Up against every word. I'm up against all of them and they form a thirsting army. You had a knife on the rim of your halo. Your scent was gasoline. There is nothing like a corpse. It does not wait and it does not want. It changes every minute and it does not regret. There is nothing like where bees come from. Not springtime, and not God. That was always a thick and foolish foolishness. Then we put our hands in soil and our hands were covered in soil.

Now You Do

Quick breathing in the open break, worlds away from toasty destiny, I'm with you and our past, shivering in alleys and cold hallways. In cold walls and eastern walks we gathered our stolen hearts and shared them up again in brightish light. Then fire bit our hands and we shoved off, our cabin wheeling. Cave spun, hair tangled in smarting roots, we dozed for a while and struck racking seas. The wreck of storms was for us and for distance and in my life I saw you polishing drab stars. My shoulderblades unbuckled and trees bent sidewise in a warming wind. I was all for finding perfect moments in our veering mind.   

Occupations And Some Satellites

A cheery band of brigands cradled the thicket of silver in their eyes, retired forethought, afterthought, and simply went where the growing was warm. They took toads with them. Old toads that stammered and halted until their feet could hardly kick. Stunted feet in crisp envelopes. Under a bush a painter sat, wondered aloud in the silence and made do with hooey. The gun stunned the fly and the liar. A hokey shadow named itself King Me, and played at the lacquered instrument until my hands could almost move without. Water poured on things that grew, then went back down. A tired functionary filed the form to end addictive delirium. A banker unfroze the accounts and went warbling through the town for the sake of songbreaking. He skipped in the rain. He rejoined the fish and added the day to the list. And the names, too.

Old Man And Ants

Filing into the hovel, towards tenderness, the ants gathered at the feet of the squat old man. He had long since gone beyond disgust. He would never harm them. They were old and he was old. They were dying and he would sweep them into the jungle when they expired. He would sprinkle them onto good soil so their dead bodies could nourish it. They were confident in their feeling that he would care for them. How strange for the ants to think this way. Of course, they did not exaclty think. Their thoughts were, in fine, formations of the old man. 

Four Friends

Long gone from the boil, an old pot gathered in the corner and shouted to everyone: "I am old, a dead vessel, full of ruses and knuckles and the way you look at me is broken." It tumbled forward and extended its arms out into the dust, awkwardly rolling from side to side, with nowhere to go and no one to help it. Everyone was gone from the house years ago, and only the beams of sunlight were there to witness the scene. The old pot, rolling from side to side, the cold blackened fireplace, the sunbeams, and the dust. They made a family and agreed to stay together until that grande dame, night, came calling. Then they would forget themselves again and roll about in wasted solitude. It was an altogether fine reality. The walls leaked cold air all around them and no one had a care in the world.

Quick Silver

To be in touch with sides, and to walk along a shifting sandline, these are approaches to civilization. Then the rocket. And the fault lies with earthquakes. And children discover the mystery of solids. No souls, only spheres that vibrate when we approach. Chives and potatoes. And mercury. That silver quickening of black blood waiting in the trees. A proper face and a warming hand that adjust the collision. The comfort of dolls, the slats between the moments in time. The boy with his hand in his mouth. The boy with his speech sliding to the horizon. 

My Poem-Comix in Drunken Boat Magazine

I have some poem-comix published in a recent issue of the fine online magazine Drunken Boat:

Click here to check them out.

The Thief

A thief sits in a landscape he stole even though it was already his. He is throwing away everything of value. The sunset. Birds. Wind on the water. This has to be done to make room for the beginning. He throws out ownership and the myth of things. He throws away language and the calliope of symbols. He throws away plastic. Cantaloupes and cardboard and air. He lets his own mouth do the breathing for once.

Restive Nocturne One

Wondering a oneness, a silent conclave. Nothing goes hurtling across the sky. Everything and everyone, all shouting down from disappearing clouds. Hands shift in hands and nerves leave them behind, to grieve in their own cradle. Goners get gone. 

Distinct in the shadows: these old feelings. The dark awake, when the bright cold buildings meet me at my window.  Then a heavy breath is routed and I am without. Just a shift of thought, a glistening scarf on a velvet chair.

Meek tones in the margins, a paraphrase to busted longing, a mute descent, these coarse cuts. Hear this, and bend in thought. Hear this, and go below. Attunement. 

Home is where the cieling is. All blue and far away.

The Edge Of The Ember

Death and its requisite implications will have to happen whether or not we make it to the edge of the ember. A lonesome stinging thing will see us confused when the windows play tight and envious. I woke up and knew you, and in knowing you knew I was known. Then I lived some more. You watched and panned for me in streams. There was also how the light moved across the floor. It carried vast shoes with it, dust in a teacup, nothing for a sung hero. Our bed had a hand in the drink without losing us. Who falls? Only the story that won't listen. A court will find us holding each other in the storm, laughing. 

In the want of an original title I have ventured to call the following piece a remonstrance.

Elk train vert. A few years ago, no one imagined that the spines (foliage) of pine-trees could be converted into wool. Roanoke ember auroch, bos taurus primigenius. The problem Saxby Chambliss faces is that he has maxed out his support base. What about: “I don’t like you, do you understand?” Keep in mind, keep leaves in mind, keep then, using the habitat template approach, that hydropeaking pressure is related to biological quality elements, such as the ellipse of the half-moon. Lunatic lollers and lepers about, and mad as the moon sit, more other less. When passing a senior center or other facility primarily used by senior citizens, contiguous to a street other than a bleak highway and posted with a standard "SENIOR" warning sign, a local authority is not required to erect any sign pursuant to this paragraph until donations from private sources covering those costs are received and the local agency makes a determination that the proposed signing should be implemented. One thing about this, the longer you last the less you care.

What Snakes?

What snakes
in this reality hotel,
what perfect traps
and nooses,
what cliffs
of shale
might we
fall from,
wandering beyond
limits of love?

The Articles The Particles

True roaming, the everything way we go. This had me down and I was down and something made me say go up there and find the bottom for the plumbing and should you see him or her or that way that they do, then you might get in the middle the way you want to. That is just the down way of saying this is the thing. So, I said it. That had me saying it over and again and of course there was no me to be there, but I said it as I said it and something true happened. It was a cool treasure and there was a way to extract its great bulk from the bottom, but it required we go live at the bottom, so was the worth really inherent in the value? There was no there without us, you have it. Than me, she was something with something growing, and I stood marbling the hallway with my smile. Everything hit the eject button at about the same time, and nothing blasted, it all just heavily drifted upward as a sprint might fuzz out. Was good. Was real good and everyone cried all along and alone and there was both of us zanting and melting and skipping away when the prices were told. We knew they were more so we held our heads out, hands in mouths, fingers getting wet and our eyes starred the way they do.

Dear Friends,

My longtime friend and craze-art collaborator, Ben Cramer, and I are pleased to announce the launch of our very first album, Carmelita Velasquez, which you will soon be able to buy on iTunes or listen to for free on Spotify. It's been years in the making and we are simply tickled that it's finally a reality. If you would like an advanced taste, you can listen to it for free in its entirety (free!) by clicking right here.

New poems up at the On Barcelona blog!

Dear Friends,

New poems of mine can be seen at the cool blog site On Barcelona. 

Enjoy, enjoy!

Our Hero (#1)

Our skinny, messy-haired, 19 year-old hero wakes up in his small and shitty first floor studio apartment to the sounds of “Still Life With Hot Deuce On Silver Platter” by Titus Andronicus playing on his Red Firetruck Radio. He jumps out of bed, wearing only his boxers. He does 17 jumping jacks and 4 push-ups. He pulls on jeans, and a T-shirt printed with the phrase: “I’m all about understanding Anarchy." He tucks some rocks in his back pockets and reads Emily Dickinson's "I'm nobody! Who are you?" to his frog (which looks at him quietly from inside a small glass bowl next to his toaster). He fries himself an egg and eats it out of the pan, drinking a coke and reading a worn 1977 edition of LIFE magazine.  Occasionally he tears a page out of the magazine and tosses it into the air, yelling: "Montage!" (Meanwhile, outside, two thieves wearing ski masks and black leather gloves are preparing to break into and steal his neighbor’s car.) Our hero, coming to the end of his magazine, yells “To work! … Or NOT to work!” He quickly ties a blindfold onto himself and sprints as hard as he can out of his apartment door. He SLAMS into one of the thieves, whose head slams into the head of the other thief. THWACK! The two thieves fall unconscious into the street, thieving tools falling out of their hands. Our hero yells “Sorry...Maybe!” and runs off, zig-zagging, down the street. A beat cop turns the corner and comes upon the fallen thieves. The cop grins strangely, with a thought bubble reading “Now what?!” while our hero careens down the block into the distance.

New Drawings Published in Everyday Genius

Friends,

I have some drawings published in this month's issue of Everyday Genius magazine.

Go here to see them:

http://www.everyday-genius.com/2013/08/matt-rotando.html?m=1

Thanks ever so much to the illustrious John Dermot Woods for the invitation to submit. 

Happily,

Matt

Long Trail Field Notes #8

On The Custodial Spirit, and the Excellence of Eric St. Jean and Eva Malone

Several days into my Long Trail trek, I met two 23 year old hikers who had a similar pace to my own: a lovely couple from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Eric St. Jean and Eva Malone. I was hiking up Bromley Mountain, a pretty ski mountain covered in a meadow of wildflowers, and at the top, near the ski lift, sat Eric and Eva, with a pizza (!) they'd carried to the top. When they offered me a slice I yawped with joy. Fast friends.

(Eva, Eric, and Bruce, an Appalachian Trail hiker and fellow pizza lover.)

Eva and Eric and I managed to hike in synch with one another throughout many of the days, sometimes chatting as we hiked, sometimes simply hiking near one another in mellow silence. When The Long Trail split with the Appalachian Trail, after 104 miles, Eva had to get off, due to a foot injury. She's a great hiker and a bright spirit, but the intensity of her injury required her to make the wise decision to finish the remaining undone section of The Long Trail at a future time, when she's healed.

So, a little bummed, Eric and I moseyed forward, into the mud and rain. We set our tents up alongside each other and spurred each other onward through some gnarly weather, tough terrain, and achy legs. Eric is a quicker hiker and would usually get to a peak several minutes before me. I'd yell to him to "reel me up!" He'd yell "You got it, Matty!" We'd often walk within eyesight or earshot of each other for hours in quiet, just appreciating the sounds of streams and thrushes and the feeling of cool breezes on our necks.

A few days ago, in high winds and damp weather, we came to the top of another ski mountain area, called Smuggler's Notch. At the mountaintop sat a nice looking warming hut and we decided to see if it was open, even though it was summer and there was no ski snow to be found. Wouldn't you know...the door was unlocked and we went right in. 

(Eric in front of our happy warming hut.)

But to our dismay, we found the place utterly trashed inside. A large group of hooligans had very recently driven up a Jeep trail and had a clandestine party in the hut. Garbage, spilled beer, and broken bottles were strewn everywhere inside. It made us both sad. So we decided we'd do what we could to tidy it up. There was a large garbage pail and a broom and we got to work. After an hour or so we had the place looking pretty spiffy. We'd thrown out all the refuse that was strewn around and as we cleaned we found 1/2 a chocolate bar, 1/2 a bag of marshmallows, a package of hotdogs, some buns, and a bottle of ketchup. We considered this booty our reward for a good cleanup job and we proceeded to make hot chocolate and cook the hotdogs on our camping stoves. I dried the slightly soggy buns over the stove flames while the dogs cooked, which made Eric laugh like hell. Very tasty cookout! Our bellies full and our good deed done, we slept soundly in the windproof mountaintop hut.

Two days before the end of The Long Trail we ran into a southbound Long Trailer who was having some aches and pains and asked if we had any ibuprofen, since she'd run out. Eric gave her a nice pile of Advil and in return she told us about a secret camping spot up ahead next to a pretty pond that was great for swimming. This was pure trail magic. We hiked the rest of the day, found the nice little spot, called Ritterbush Pond, and swam to our hearts' delight.

(Ritterbush Pond, great for swimming.)

(Eric feasts using his new "woodland chopsticks.")

We had a great sunset meal and camped on a little covered dock looking out over the water. When it rained through the night we stayed dry and happy.

Yesterday, as I approached the northern end of The Long Trail, Eric, who had arrived there a few minutes before me, yelled, "Run it, Matty!" And I charged to the end, bellowing with glee. It was great to share the joy of completion with a new friend.

(Northern Terminus of The Long Trail.)

(Eric sings "Oh, Canada!" at the wilderness border between the U.S.A. and Canada, just a few feet away from the northern end of The Long Trail.)

Eva drove for hours from New Hampshire and met us at the trail terminus. We jumped in her car and proceeded to the lovely town of Stowe, Vermont, where there was a warm inn Eva had booked for us. Much feasting and laughter ensued. This morning they drove me to the Amtrak station in Waterbury, Vermont, where I hopped on the Vermonter train, to ride back to New York. Goodbye for now, Eric and Eva. Thanks for everything and I'll see y'all soon.

(Eric and Eva at the railway station.)

Long Trail Field Notes #7

On Stories

There are these stories we tell ourselves, over and over, until we believe they're real. Stories that become grooves and ruts in our hearts and minds until we think we know who we are. Sometimes these stories, these narratives, are positive. Sometimes not. We'll turn certain experiences into full-blown catastrophes, over and over in our heads, until we think we're unlucky, troubled, downtrodden, etc. Or we'll look in the mirror and see affirmations of the messages we've been telling ourselves for so long that it all feels like Truth. But, walking all day, one day after the other, 17 miles per day, and coming to the end of The Long Trail of Vermont, I've had a little chance to watch my mind grab certain tales, hang onto them for a while, and then (often when I get to the top of a mountain, refreshed by a blowing breeze) let go and relax into a less grasping calm. A calm in which I'm not sweatily trying to tell myself who or what I am. A simple, quiet being. 

I'm sure this is not new wisdom I'm doling out here. I'm sure we all have this experience, from time to time, of thinking we know who we are and then allowing that knowledge to gently slip away.

I had this narrative in my head that I simply had to wear heavy boots that covered my ankles, or else I would injure myself and be unable to finish my trek. And then I met Dilan and Kelly, two sisters walking The Long Trail. Dilan, a first-year college student, found that her hiking shoes were not very comfortable to her and decided to switch to trail-trudging in her Crocs. Yes, her Crocs! Those light, minimally supportive lounging shoes that are made of foam that's only slightly denser than a marshmallow.

(Hiking sisters, Kelly and Dilan, near the end of The Long Trail.)

(Dilan's Crocs, which took her through the toughest section of the trail.)

Dilan walked 171 miles of the toughest and most rugged part of The Long Trail in those little Crocs, just taking it easy and enjoying the walk in the most comfortable footwear she had.

So, when my Achilles' tendon started giving me trouble, I thought of Dilan and I let go of the narrative that lacing my boots all the way above my ankles was "the only way." I put duct tape and an Ace bandage over my irritated spots and walked on. For over 50 more miles. 

(First the duct tape.)

(Then the Ace bandage.)

(Then the sock and loosely tied, more comfortable boot.)

I was inspired by Dilan to let go of my narrative that my shoe must be a certain way. And I relaxed into what became a much more comfortable experience. Maybe on my next hike I'll even try low-top shoes...or Crocs!

This is just a wee example, but there were other times when I'd stew my own brain to its boiling point over various issues and troubles from my paved life, even while surrounded by grand mountain vistas. Often such psychodramas would make trekking over easy terrain feel like I was trapped in a bog. What would it take to get back to the moment, to the immediacy of lived experience? Breathing helped. Cool drinks of water and snacks helped. But even more helpful was simply being attentive to the styles and textures of my thinking patterns until I could see that I often held onto certain negativities for no reason other than sheer force of habit. Sheesh. How ridiculous I am when I am convinced, with white-knuckled conviction, that I know what I am. How foolish to let the shifting web of narratives and my inevitable embellishments define my world. There's a certain clarity, and even a strange security, in letting the stream of thoughts just be a stream...instead of trying to weave them into something permanent.

Long Trail Field Notes #6

Have now hiked 212 miles of The Long Trail. Only 60 miles left to complete the "through-hike." The last three days have been grinding and tough, with Burnt Rock Mountain, Mt. Ethan Allen, Camel's Hump, Mt. Bolton, and Mt. Mansfield (Vermont's highest mountain). All of these mountains have their own special way of busting your ass and crushing you. On some it was crazy weather (high cold winds, heavy rain), on others it was lots of climbing up and down ladders (ladders!) bolted into the rock, on still others it was long cautious shuffling up and down very slippery vertically challenging boulders. It was never boring, believe me. Anyway, these last 60 miles to the Canadian border should be challenging as well, though not as ridiculously steep as this section I've just finished. Onward!

(On Camel's Hump.)

(Ladders bolted to the rock ascending Mt. Mansfield.)

(Freaky red mushrooms...do not eat!)

(Pretty little red berries.)

(Pretty little blue berries.)

(View from the shelter where I'm sleeping, by Sterling Pond.)

Long Trail Field Notes #5

Brook Brain Babble

Hymn them hawks, wheeling on the wing, four like spokes at peak tops. Tip of the morning to little berries, tiny crimson and dark blue orblets, vibing beside long rushing water. Some days it's bursting clouds down all day, greying every view in mist, socks sogged out and sluicing. Hands heavy in hard rain, holding trees for support down muck-slid path. Boots heavy too, soles scrabbling for grip over shiny green stone. Wince, wobble and sweat up dripping quartz crevices, legs bowing outward under salty all-day strain. But then dawn has pine branches drop cool dew on hot brow when hearty walking commences anew.

(A fun graffito found etched on a trail shelter.)

(How a camera sees three night hikers.)

(In the distance: The Camel's Hump, a mountain I will climb today.)

(On top of Mount Abraham, mile 154 on The Long Trail, The Adirondacks way in the distance behind me.)

(A steep part of the trail, with helpful rooty tree.)

(A hawk in the deep blue aboveness.)

Long Trail Field Notes #4

Come Stroll

Come walk with me over shining black mud puddles, oozing and gooping on all sides, smelling of cool rain and full of prints from people, dogs, deer and moose. Come stride with me over shiny shale rocks and slippery reddish roots. Come stretch over fallen birch trees, their white bark peeling like rolls of pale paper. Come stumble down little hills with me, clumpets of scree scattering and plinking as we descend. Come plash through streams and brooklets, that wash the mud off our boots and glister with swirling silt. Come ford rivers with me, using our sticks for balance as we step between the slippery freezing stones. Come sit, rest, and drink cold cold water with me, as it springs out from between two mossy stones. Chuckle and find the trail with me as it hides in high grass and tall purple thistles. Come, reach your hands up and scramble over large, jagged, lichen-green stones. If anything falls out of your pack I will pick it up and hand it back to you, grinning. This is the woods.

The Appalachian Trail and the Long Trail diverge here. The A.T. goes to New Hampshire and Maine. The L.T. goes to Canada. I've now walked 108 miles, with 165 left.

Long Trail Field Notes #3

How I Walk:

I walk with a pair of hiking poles. They give me extra balance and power. I wear boots that go past my ankles, for extra support on the treacherous stuff. I wear a very light wool T-Shirt when I hike that doesn't smell horrid after many days of walking. If it gets cool or rainy I throw on a rain jacket. I take medium or long strides on flattish ground and short ones going up or down hills. I break every hour or so for water and every two hours for a snack. I walk 15 to 20 miles per day. So far I've covered about 80 miles.

What I Have:

Knife, tent, sleeping bag, food, camp stove, fuel, bowl, spoon, disinfectant, map, first aid kit, flashlight, water-purifying tablets, notebook, long sleeve shirt and long underwear, extra pair of socks.

What I Eat:

Breakfast: Grape nuts with milk (powdered and water added).

Lunch: Banana chips, peanut butter, and sopresatta (or salami or jerky).

Dinner:

Grits or instant mashed potatoes, miso or chicken boullion, sopressata (or salami, tuna fish, or jerky).

Snacks:

Clif Bars, trail mix (no peanuts!), sopressata, or salami or jerky.

How I Think:

In the morning when I wake up (about 6:30am) I'm all business...eat breakfast, break camp and GO. My first hour of walking is "clear my head walking"...I simply walk and watch my breathing. The second hour of walking I think about poetry. These are the only two quite disciplined thinking hours of my day. The rest of the day is enjoying the scenery, taking pictures, making up little songs, chatting with other hikers I meet on the trail, etc. When I get to my campsite at night I'm all business again...getting water from the stream and treating it, boiling water for grits, setting up my tent. I try to be in bed and asleep by 10pm, so I can wake and repeat!

Long Trail Field Notes #2

On Slipping Categories

"How am I not myself?"

--I Heart Huckabees

How am I not this wind, this quick breeze muttering in the leaves? How am I not these spiders, whose glinting webs catch and then release me? How am I not my family, my friends, even the rascals, and the troublemakers? Drinking from a cold spring fuzzes my boundaries. And these wacky roots, headed in all directions, drawing life from everywhere? How am I not them too, covered in bright moss? Yesterday a wide-eyed man in the forest told me he saw the planet take a breath. How am I not that emanation? Am I not also time? And if that, then change itself? The light rain becomes torrential and laughs me onward. Is it me or the mountain asking this? Sometimes even a small child can wobble a huge stone.