PortFire

Archives from 2011-2025

Author: fishify

  • With Aristotle

    Aristotle in the back yard instead of raking the leaves that crackle and rustle under foot

    Supposing that knowledge is one of those things that is fine and valuable

    Considering each thought as it comes to mind – wondering if, fleetingly or otherwise, each is an action unto itself

    Of these some are held to be affections peculiar to the soul itself, others belong to the animals

    Falling behind the effort to keep pace as the awareness of every moment’s passing stacks upon its predecessor

    the inquiry, that is, about substance and what a thing is — perhaps someone might think

    Thinking about thinking, thoughts about thoughts, daydreams dangle loosely and tangle into knotty heaps

    For straightness is inseparable if indeed it is impossible without a body

    A murder of crows acts as a distraction and an awareness of my re-action drives me inside to seek refuge from the endless possibilities

  • Titter & Scroop

    From the back-pocket notebook.

  • Lean Ether

    open to a blank page just in case
    just in case this document is ready to become a documentation
    a documentation of that which is already happening, in progress
    a contemporaneous convergence, if you will.

    crude, and yet we all agree: Beautiful
    though beautiful hardly fits the bill as an attempt at describing
    describing but just scratching the surface, grazing the veneer
    these are the words. this is the phrasing.

    each line is a happening in it self
    itself taking shape as the words spill out and spill onto
    spill onto and across in the form of a poem, fashion a verse
    make from nothing but the words in my head: Something.

  • Catbird

    there’s a catbird in the Xylosma
    not nesting, exactly, but living
    or hiding from the rain that’s recently returned
    after just one day to drain
    assess the damage and be thankful for none

    the catbird flits about
    and I can’t decide if
    it is doing so nervously
    or in a rather cavalier fashion
    chi-chi-chippering away
    either to herself or at me

    she’s peeking through the cool dark of her dense shelter
    from branch to branch hopping
    getting up to eye level
    maybe to assess the threat
    and be thankful for none

    I, perhaps nervously, step away
    from the bulging hedge
    begging to be pruned
    pack a bowl
    and smoke it
    as the catbird looks on

  • In Between

    driving
    but dilly-dallying
    really
    daydreaming
    over the hills
    the miles of vines
    the corners of which I’m cognizant
    but just barely
    the dead barn owl with one wing flapping in the breeze of a car just gone by
    the cows
    cute but stinky
    and thankfully organic
    the jibber-jabber on the radio
    the cool rush of air from the window on the far side of the truck
    the miles
    really
    the miles
    they rush at me and under me and into infinity beyond the back bumper
    and then the sun pushing up and into
    pushing
    the sky in the mirrors brightens and lightens and makes itself known
    and when I look up at the mountain range that stands between me and the massive expanse of Pacific
    the fog just barely spilling over
    pink

  • Source Code

    unbending on breaking into a series of handshakes and deals
    contracts written into existence post facto
    words situated to fit the situation just as the unfolding takes place
    (is this equal and opposite?)
    more than making a fuss over
    this documentation
    more than just a casual observation

    the parties involved take parts neither are quite sure of
    the definitions of which lay unfinished in a heap somewhere
    notes scribbled, things referred to as “paperwork”
    ellipses taking the place of, or implying meaning where any has yet to settle despite the appearance of agreement or sense of propriety

    this is where bleak formality is layered in
    where the comfort of conformity trumps the ideas of action
    where the questions, in all the forms they’re known to adopt
    whether posture or postulation, blossom into a thing more important than that for which they strive
    – the answer is the terminal, the question, the journey

    between that which is developing
    the cause and effect
    the nuance
    the roles implemented
    the desire to imagine
    to backfill and anticipate that which is not apparent, becomes the beauty of the action taken
    makes connections
    makes that upon which we endeavor a voyage instead of mere motion.

  • Celebrating women, cautiously.

  • ART hangs here

    ART. By Richard Bolingbroke

  • Ninja paints Upper Playground

    Shot from deep within a crowd on Fillmore Street SF CA

    More here.

  • Remembering Mason’s Stoup

    The colony provides a certain sense of security.
    We dreamed of boundaries
    and of distance, of lines imparted on charts
    scrawled
    and, then often
    reconfigured on what would eventually
    become the maps on which we base various aspects of our
    belief systems.

    These are just lines, you see,
    on paper
    no less
    or cloth
    divined not by the hand of God mind you, but out of a vague mix of un-knowing perceived advantage
    & the kind of greed inspired by what must have been thought of at the time as an infinite resource.

    On one side of any given line
    imagined, drawn, or published
    capacities are anticipated
    territories squeezed into acres are thought of in terms of
    yield & bounty
    investment & return
    and the dangers of the yet undiscovered.

    This is the point where potential is neutral, where there is as much to offer as there is to lose.

    Habitation is a state of mind
    as is ownership, and claims staked
    in the name of…
    for the queen of…
    with God as our witness.

    Imagine the audacity
    or was it the will to live(?)
    to step
    as if naked into what could only be considered the unknown
    the planet’s edge
    the edge of what could be.

    Imagine the dreams
    the thoughts of prayers coming true
    the wide-eyed wonder of a world brand new.

    This is the frying pan.

    This is the fire.