25.8.09
23.8.09
packed
I packed pretty much everything I think I'll need/want, it's a one bag thing; the normal clothes in one bag, the electronics and objects of personal value in one bag, the shoes in one bag, the bedding in one bag, the dress clothes in one bag, the hats in a small bag, and I'll be carrying my life in my backpack, as usual. I've sorted through pretty much my entire room, cleaned out most of it, the rest will get cleaned out at some point tonight or tomorrow. Gone through ALL of my pens...and I love pens and pencils, and I have 200+, no exageration required, it's ridiculous. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things, but I doubt it's very much, tonight Mari's sleeping over, it'll be nice to see her right before I leave, because tomorrow we drive upstate around midday, I'll prolly hop online to check the email tomorrow night, there's a few things I've gotta pack up from up there, and then on tuesday I'm starting bright and early up at RPI. Along with 1370 other freshmen, 27% of which are female, and pretty much exactly 1% I know (not the females, the entire class silly). I'll have super high speed internet there, and a roommate, we'll see how things go, feels a little weird to be leaving without the intent to come back, yes I'll visit, yes I'll see everything again, yes I'll sleep in that bed again, but I'll never live here again, not permanently, hopefully not even for a duration like my brother is doing. I'll be finally really truly free, it's beautiful. I'll miss people, I'll miss places, I'll miss doing things (sidenote; bought a copy of Farenheit 451 to take to college, read it like 3 more times over the past coupla weeks, there's an amazing piece on death and remembering people that really hit me these times, maybe cause since I've read it I've had three people who I really care about die, both on purpose and not, but it's amazing, has to do with missing and how people fit into other people's lives), and I'll miss the times I had. But some of those I'll stick with, mostly people, some of those I'll forget, mostly places, and some will never leave me, people again. The ones that fade until they're gone don't really matter in the first place usually, not always, so I'll try to keep my forgetting/disappearing to a minimum. It's been fun.
22.8.09
enjoy
A MOMENT OF SILENCE, BEFORE I START THIS POEM
Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
In honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon last September 11th.
I would also like to ask you
To offer up a moment of silence
For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned,
disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes,
For the victims in both Afghanistan and the U.S.
And if I could just add one more thing...
A full day of silence
For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the
hands of U.S.-backed Israeli
forces over decades of occupation.
Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people,
mostly children, who have died of
malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year U.S.
embargo against the country.
Before I begin this poem,
Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,
Where homeland security made them aliens in their own country.
Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of
concrete, steel, earth and skin
And the survivors went on as if alive.
A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people,
not a war - for those who
know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their
relatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it.
A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of
a secret war ... ssssshhhhh....
Say nothing ... we don't want them to learn that they are dead.
Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia,
Whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have
piled up and slipped off our tongues.
Before I begin this poem.
An hour of silence for El Salvador ...
An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...
Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ...
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.
45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas
25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found
their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could
poke into the sky.
There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains.
And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of
sycamore trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west...
100 years of silence...
For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half
of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand
Creek,
Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears.
Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the
refrigerator of our consciousness ...
So you want a moment of silence?
And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths
Our eyes stapled shut
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust.
Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be. Not like it always has
been.
Because this is not a 9/11 poem.
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.
This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written.
And if this is a 9/11 poem, then:
This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971.
This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa,
1977.
This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison,
New York, 1971.
This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes
This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told
The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks
The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and
Newsweek ignored.
This is a poem for interrupting this program.
And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children
Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.
If you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the instant messages,
Derail the trains, the light rail transit.
If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window
of Taco Bell,
And pay the workers for wages lost.
Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the
Penthouses and the Playboys.
If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July
During Dayton's 13 hour sale
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful
people have gathered.
You want a moment of silence
Then take it NOW,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
But take it all...Don't cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime. But we,
Tonight we will keep right on singing...For our dead.
EMMANUEL ORTIZ, 11 Sep 2002.
Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
In honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon last September 11th.
I would also like to ask you
To offer up a moment of silence
For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned,
disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes,
For the victims in both Afghanistan and the U.S.
And if I could just add one more thing...
A full day of silence
For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the
hands of U.S.-backed Israeli
forces over decades of occupation.
Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people,
mostly children, who have died of
malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year U.S.
embargo against the country.
Before I begin this poem,
Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,
Where homeland security made them aliens in their own country.
Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of
concrete, steel, earth and skin
And the survivors went on as if alive.
A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people,
not a war - for those who
know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their
relatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it.
A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of
a secret war ... ssssshhhhh....
Say nothing ... we don't want them to learn that they are dead.
Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia,
Whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have
piled up and slipped off our tongues.
Before I begin this poem.
An hour of silence for El Salvador ...
An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...
Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ...
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.
45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas
25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found
their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could
poke into the sky.
There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains.
And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of
sycamore trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west...
100 years of silence...
For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half
of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand
Creek,
Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears.
Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the
refrigerator of our consciousness ...
So you want a moment of silence?
And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths
Our eyes stapled shut
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust.
Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be. Not like it always has
been.
Because this is not a 9/11 poem.
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.
This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written.
And if this is a 9/11 poem, then:
This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971.
This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa,
1977.
This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison,
New York, 1971.
This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes
This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told
The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks
The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and
Newsweek ignored.
This is a poem for interrupting this program.
And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children
Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.
If you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the instant messages,
Derail the trains, the light rail transit.
If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window
of Taco Bell,
And pay the workers for wages lost.
Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the
Penthouses and the Playboys.
If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July
During Dayton's 13 hour sale
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful
people have gathered.
You want a moment of silence
Then take it NOW,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
But take it all...Don't cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime. But we,
Tonight we will keep right on singing...For our dead.
EMMANUEL ORTIZ, 11 Sep 2002.
tradition
Staying up the last night of our trip in martha's vineyard playing games and watching TV, prolly go watch the sun rise or something. Then on to the rest of the day and leaving and seeing people and packing. Woohoo!
18.8.09
salt water
I love the smell of the ocean, I was at the beach for a few hours today, maybe 4 hours or something. And I just couldn't get over the ocean. So much movement and control in such a large amount of space. And when I was swimming I felt like maybe if I kept going I would end up somewhere else. Maybe on the shore of Europe or something. There was just a huge feeling of connection to the world, and not just people, but the actual land too. I think I'm going to spend some serious time on the ocean in my life. Prolly got sunburned, but I don't really care, and I'm going back tomorrow :P Thought a lot about the trip to gurney's and how much I just enjoyed being with the people there, specially hanging with mari on the beach was just nice. I'm starting to feel a little bit of the strain of going back to school, and I'm missing being completely relaxed, that's pretty much it. Thinking about a lot of things and people.
16.8.09
what's really good ninjaaahh? (emphasis on them Hs)
So it's the morning, which is kindof the only time I get to myself here, which I have no problem with, it's just that I don't get many moments to post :P either it's really late at night (right after matt goes to sleep and right before I go to sleep) or we're busy doing something. I really enjoy it here, mad amounts of fun, of course, but I miss being in the city and seeing everyone there that I care about. My phone has zero reception here, except when we drive past the airport on our way to somewheres.... Yesterday I saw district 9. It was amazing. Maybe the best movie I've seen in recent times (newly released). It was as good as Moon no question. AMAZING. Peter Jackson pulled through again, Lotr, and now District 9. I recommend any and all to go see it NOW. Still can't wrap my mind around how epic it was. At the movie theater we (matt and I) ran into Will and Sarah and Will's family (mom+step-dad+bro). So we'll prolly chill with them at some point. Made me really think about all the ppl who I'm not going to see very much of and not going to spend much time with who I really enjoy chilling with, like those two. Will's been a housemate for 4 years, and we both chill and play games and smoke a little, I think we weren't friends for a while because we're a little too similar, but now that we've started to grow our different ways we've started to enjoy each others company. Sarah's just fun, who doesn't like a frenchy? :P don't answer that. It was nice/weird to see Dalton people. And they really are just people who I know from seeing them at Dalton. I'm trying to figure out for myself what life will be like at RPI, even though there's no way of knowing yet, so I'm just spinning my mental wheels without determining anything, frustrating, but I can't do anything about it, my brain's on autopilot. I've been chilling with Rach a bunch too, she's really great and I'm going to miss my little sis even though I'll see her a lot and talk to here muchos, I've watched her grow up and in a lot of ways really been an older brother who she can talk to about things that she can't with Matt (I've always wanted a little sister, my parents just didn't follow through). We had a whole conversation about boys and girls (seems to always come up ya?) Because she's never had a real boyfriend, just flings or "being together"s, nothing official. Of course I'm the leading expert on longterm relationships, because I've had so many of them I don't know what to do with myself.... >.< But I know a little about the way guys work. I said she really needs some good guy friends, which I know can be hard to find for a girl, the points I really enjoyed about the conversation were things I sortof came to realize about the way I interact with girls, that all my relationships with girls are flirtatious, regardless of whether I want to get into their pants or not, because it's not a relationship with a guy, which is very different, and of course we got to the "girls are so much more complicated" and yes they are, but it's guys' fault. Guys simply respond to the signals that girls send out. That's all. So for a dude life is simple, we just look at girls and respond (very basically), they need to figure out the exact signal to send out, or else we respond improperly, that's the real problem. That's the real basic view of things, really, really basic. But I think it holds solid under scrutiny. I've been thinking about relationships a lot;friendships, romances, mentorships, and anything else that I didn't think of. I can't wait to leave EVERYTHING behind about my old life, and look at it in a pile and pick and choose what I want to keep with me and take into my new way of living. I'm just worried that I'll miss something that's really small (don't worry friends *ahem jessi* there's no way I'd forget you) but something that I'm NOT thinking of right now, that I"ll miss without realizing it. I'm getting a little nervous about college, and I'm tired of waiting. I just want to start, and deal with the problems that come up and the things that I want to change, instead of where I'm at right now, which is just waiting and trying to figure out what all those problems will be and trying to prepare myself for them. I don't like this. But for now, I'm going to exercise my power of self-control and stop worrying about it, enjoy myself for another week before I get back, and then go to work packing up my old life (literally and emotionally/mentally) with vigor (good word, oh thanks russell, you're welcome). I'll try to throw something up everyday, it may be long or it may be not-so-long. for matt; 40 pounds.
15.8.09
beach
today was fun. Went to the beach for a good piece of time, it was gorgeous. I'm prolly not going to be able to go tomorrow. But I might go see district 9 tomorrow, cool stuff. Real tired right now, I'll put some more shit up tomorrow.
13.8.09
meteors
there wasn't a shower because there is too much cloud cover. But it's a beautiful night out. For anyone who is reading this tonight you should step outside for a moment and brathe the cool summer air, it's wonderful.
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