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leaving montgomery park

we’re careening— well, that sounds dramatic. not careening— but sliding, holding you and myself in place— because my disposition leads (and has always led) to believing abandon reckless will kill if I let it as close as myself and yourself held only by bicycle rope or kayak rope or moving box rope side beside inside truckbed backseat forgone throats slicked with City of Roses forest gin and Artemis Moons I’m sober and you’re not I’m anxious and you’re not you’re carefree spit-balling about side parts and saying love and love as we pass long-haul truckers— eyesclosed Lyft drivers— that pinkie-promise coworker to fast friend elbow to elbow barefoot to clogs off in the cab shallow river dipping mask off cheek pinch I-tell-everyone-you’re-my-cousin kind of love that no mother could ever that no father could ever that kind of love that door we kicked down and threw into that mustard bonfire of before that old worthless hinge don’t work so won’t bother not ever not now not in this truckbed— I toss my thoughts to traffic fine me $900 for littering lock me up for language you say what a beautiful city my glasses are in my pocket those empty offices stacked apartments and windowbeam glitterblurs fall into the nightvoid I’ve seen beautiful and more unmatched in those words you weave so keep weaving them— I’ll be here listening long after we pull into the driveway. (& if u like it, I linked my poetry newsletter :)

@chickeninshoes

May 14, 2024

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“Ithaka” by c.P. Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them: you’ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you. / Hope your road is a long one. May there be many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, what joy, you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind— as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to learn and go on learning from their scholars. / Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you’re destined for. But don’t hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you’re old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. / Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you wouldn't have set out. She has nothing left to give you now. / And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

@gaucheries

Mar 15, 2025

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Substance

Really i am coarsing through your veins. Bleeding you out. Striking a cord. Relinquishing my spine. Relegating autonomy to the massive misogyny. Reckless. unstable and a brat. Something to say at the least appropriate moment, It was us all along. The flute stayed in tune. I decided long ago I would stay. Only to let go of who I actually was. Be there when you can. You never were. Bribe your way to my heart. Lend a helping hand. Decide to be yourself. The glass shatters and I reflect on myself and who I used to be. Bad bad bad. All the same to me, I don’t care if you die of thirst. Your green with envy and it shows. Quite the pussy cat. The elixer is mid greatfuly so. I take my bath and lay myself bare. It shows. Just where have you been. All the while I have been searching and finding no release as to who I want to be. I choose this time. I decide where to put it. Wide awake and endlessly falling asleep.

@gk

Mar 1, 2025

Top Recs from @saoirse-bertram

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Absent ephemera

Bereft of a true home, I dwell instead in sentiment and practice the collection of numerous small tokens thereof: an olive-pin, a tea-tag, a berry-shell, a fortune. I treasure the incitement of memory brought about by these little markers in time-passed, as I do that incited by the more obvious strains: postcards and Polaroids and locks of hair … and these too I try to accumulate, these too light me! But perhaps what is most meaningful is the undisplayable — that which is gone — letters received and lost, letters writ and never sent and lost; a poem misplaced in the loose-leaf of a moulting notebook. A garland of flowers or bouquet that remains only in a blurred photograph; a collection of photographs drowned in a flood. Since my adolescence, some of most beautiful pictures I’ve made on my cameras have been the nonexistent — the mechanisms failed or my Nosferatuesque fingers blocked the lens or or the memory card betrayed me or the film was overexposed through actions entirely beyond control — yes, the most beautiful, I say! It is just so. I can picture them all behind my eyes in perfect clarity — so so beautiful — as beautiful as the flowers that nevermore will fragrance a room and all those words which forevernow lay unread. I can’t speak exactly to the wider benefit of this “recommendation”. But somehow this is the sort of thing that makes me happy.

@saoirse-bertram

May 10, 2023

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Kenka

Maybe this is played-out in the eyes of anyone who’s spent much time in Lower Manhattan but it’s such a classic for me. Kenka is that wacko Japanese basement off St. Marks that serves a wide range of cheap bites and cheaper beverages — the cheapest prices in the city, for all I fucking know; for an emptywalleted and literally starving type boy such as myself, the prospect of an udon-bowl, a miso soup, a French fry, and an agedashi tofu for about fifteen bucks altogether is so dreamy … beers are a buck fifty, a pitcher of beers is eight. I used to come here with my best friend, who is a very beautiful girl, to play the Drunk Challenge, which is a sort of game where you challenge yourself to drink a pitcher of beer and become intoxicated … those were the days … since her attitude went more-or-less downhill, I mostly just go here by myself now, or sometimes with Patrick. When I’m alone I’ll write out some ideas or reread Tropic of Cancer or another book of that vibrational frequency or get accosted by one of the other drunk men there, which makes me drink faster so I can leave. In fact this is a wonderful thing: the sooner I’m schway, the sooner I can get all impulsive, and at least a few more hours of life are saved from the wasting indecision that has murdered so many of my moments. C’est la fucking vie.

@saoirse-bertram

May 10, 2023

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Ultraviolence outtakes

There’s a limited selection of poets that can move me to tears without even reading through their stanzas but allowing the recollection of their words to pass over my mind — the aforementioned Bachmann is one of the real ones, T.S. Eliot is another; Elizabeth Barrett Browning, on occasion; sometimes-too Hölderlin, Herbert, Hadewijch; at least one Donne piece has this power, at least one Brecht; perhaps-too I would add cuttings of Young’s Literal Translation of the Holy Bible — contemporarily, the lines of Paris Reid, an absolutely gorgeous young Canadian I discovered several years ago (her first published prose piece can be found in the most recent Heavy Traffic) certainly effect this movement upon me time and again … who else? — well,  the only other living writer to fall on this list, and quite honestly my most exalted favourite of all-above, should be obvious to anyone who knows me … yes, yes, of course: singer slash poet slash emotional-genius Lana del Rey, my personal saint and hero … truly, her words either brought to sound or put to page surpass the Scripture to me and this I would not say if I did not mean it violently. She has held aloft my life: she is probably the third factor to my continuance. You know — as I type this — I can hear the lyrics to Venice Bitch, perhaps the greatest lyrical song ever written (though a strong case could too be made for Video Games!) echoing within and my vision swims — so overcome with emotion am I! Good God. My friends, it’s unbelievable. And everything she does is fantastic, of course, but lately I have been really been spiralling about in her demos and bootlegs and regional exclusives dating around the release of Ultraviolence, her third studio album. Pray listen; I’ll leave you with this. Say Yes To Heaven: breaks my heart. Fine China: breaks my heart. I Talk to Jesus: well, you know, onward and onward, from here to eternity…

@saoirse-bertram

May 10, 2023