#yearofarchitecture

[anisotropism]

The Urban Cracks

Did you fight hard enough to hold on to your home? Not the one with your name in crayon on the hanging drawing and a room preserved like a shrine for the Christmas homecoming, the one where it smells like cookies, but you know that it smells like those cookies, that nobody else can match. No, we outgrew those and began to desire our names on leases, our names in lights, our names exchanged in vows for all eternity-- our names take precedence over our nameless neighbors, who once might have lived down the road in a home just like ours. Would you have torn it all down and justified it by arguing over artwork too hideous, a bed too small, or a food not made to a golden standard?

We take spaces with grand plans and a belief that here we can build something that is good, and worthwhile, and lasting, but it is easy to walk away, and step into room we believe was prepared for us elsewhere. The space remains, but abandonment creates a void where someone once wanted to call home.

Here ends the Year of Architecture.

Year of Architecture.014

[anisotropism]

The Squall on the South Shore

i don't know when i became unbothered by rain-- maybe on a desperate day a decade ago, when shields were raised and that battle still lost, and i could not believe that someone could love me, a temporary love evaporated in the clarity of summer sunlight and self-reflection.

so call it foolish fearlessness when i walked miles beneath the cumulonimbus, and i stood with no ward against pinpricks caught in passing headlights-- a power to kill, perhaps, but certainly one to ruin a mood or day.

my mother makes it out to be the worst thing in the world to weather a storm without cover, but i disagree.

ritualize the fall of water, and it is a baptism, a shower. immortalize it, and the ensuing drought ends life.

Year of Architecture.012

[anisotropism]

Quasi-Star

III. I've been told perhaps I was meant for a different era, And I don't know what that means, Whether my distinction is first, last, or only, So I assume last, the humble assertion that I am not special, only the slowest to stumble upon an existence already lived out by others.

II. If we are stars or their ashes living in a universe everywhere contaminated with metals to subsist on, There is no place left to only live off the lightest elements in forged fashion of fusion, But maybe there is an antithesis to the alignment of stars to make a place devoid of their remains.

I. There is a star beyond purview that should shine brighter than all others, an impostor who may answer the mystery: Radiance emerges from ever-growing darkness, And at its end, the birth of a galaxy.

Year of Architecture.006

[anisotropism]

Embers and Engines (The Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics)

every fire is in search of fuel.

the collision of two cinders might produce sparks and call it love, believing that the joining of their two worlds produces something more-- after all, is it not bigger now?

tell me how they will go the distance when there was no work to be done, only the expectation of a sudden appearance of an already-assembled apparatus, like waking up one day expecting the sun in the sky or a car on the corner without consideration of what makes those things happen.

sometimes, the sum of two parts is exactly the sum of two parts, other times greater, but maybe it is not addition, but competition between equals racing to the finish line.

the melding of two lukewarm souls does not produce a hotter flame, only an anticipated anthology of ashes.

Year of Architecture.013

[anisotropism]

The Copenhagen Interpretation

I explain quantum weirdness to those who have yet to experience absurdities, Who seek to understand life's quarks before they explore life's quirks, Disbelieving that such a repository of knowledge like myself could exist in their midst.

When they ask about the ways in which the world works, I tell them that The chance of finding electrons halfway across the universe is never zero (but it may as well be), Or that the observation of phenomena changes what happens (your measure disrupts things), Or that there are realities you must witness to understand the reality you cannot see (you have not learned what I have), And that these things simply are.

Rather than the other things: The chance of finding something you believe is good and worthwhile and lasting is never zero (but it may as well be), Or that seeing what her happiness is like changes its state (your measure disrupts things), Or that there are sufferings you must live through to understand the sufferings you have not felt (you have not learned what I have), And that these things simply are.

Year of Architecture.004

[anisotropism]

Decade Ends

This year marks ten years of writing here. I intend to revisit my writing from the earliest time and continue stories that have been left off.

This is a project of human vanity, Of thoughts coalescing into written sanity. Remainders of the lost humanity Guard against the dark profanity.

Here are answers to questions posed Written in rhyme or song or prose With further mystery to expose: When did past life come to close?

If ever there was something with the cadence It is wondering what I lost with the cadents, Wondering what I lost with decadence, Wondering what I lost with decade ends.

Year of Architecture.005

[anisotropism]

Cenotaphs

I guess at some point I'm supposed to write about some other thing-- Any other thing that might be inspiration for self-proclaimed poetry. Surely looking in the mirror at twin pools of infinite void might conjure up something more than loss?

I asked myself how I could continue to write of you Before I realized that there is no more "you" to write of, "You" are an amalgam of lost love: contradictory promises, guarded a thousand miles away, walked away from before our story ever began And each time I pick up my pen to construct a commemoration to you, I write of this empty tomb.

Sometimes in my writing it seems that there could be resurrection or redemption, A foretold reunion, a sudden revival, But we tell the same stories of ghosts.

And though I will not be deceived by the dead, We do not stop loving them when they are gone.

Year of Architecture.003

[anisotropism]

The Desert and the Sky

It's the ironic existence of an arid land to know again what the galaxies above look like After the atmosphere promises rain elsewhere.

I once believed when your fragments fell upon me that there was an alignment of planets that drove similar but separate spirits together. After all, your stars were as numerous as my grains of sand. In an endless night, we would be the same composition of a sum greater than individual parts. Even more so when I transformed to reflect your light, Assembling into glass towers reaching up toward you.

Except

Ever greater heights ended without me encountering you, And while some part of me has been used to relay a message out to you in the broad beyond, I am no closer to you than I ever was, And in some far future where my words are welcomed by you, Nothing may be left to receive a reply.

Year of Architecture.002