Dendrobium Hillii

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As with everything and that the concert of Titus Andronicus is certainly among the best in this year’s Primavera Sound. The New Jersey are, at best, so powerful, histrionic and live vitamin as expected. Patrick Stickles is a type intense on stage, those that move, jump, shout, twist, face the drummer and guitar take advantage of changes to wipe the sweat in a hurry. No lags behind her, Amy Klein, the girl, dazzled us with their jumps to Angus Young. Really big. The opened, ‘A More Perfect Union’, which also opens his latest album, The Monitor, was shot of energy that took the edge of the pogo to the front rows.Thereafter the concert almost did not go down or tenth. ‘Richard II …’ was also amazing, but certainly the time the concert was when Patrick Stickles was charged with personal arms and walk on our heads in the fetal position, clutching his cordless mic and screaming until exhaustion that of “ your life is over! your life is over! …. ” Brutal. (Daniel Boluda)

Thanks Google Translate, for helping me understand the subtleties of the Spanish language…

One of the most surprising things about traveling is the way that little things get bigger, the everyday becomes suddenly striking, and the view that one is used to opens up to reveal the extraordinary layers underneath. I’d imagined that touring would be filled with grand adventures, that unexpected moments would pop up everywhere, just like exits on the highway, and yet, I am continually shocked at the manner in which, under close observation, the tiniest features of the road and the surrounding landscape telescope into long tunnels, allegories, alien forms. As we pressed on, from Western Pennsylvania towards Ohio, I knew that I was already seeing differently. On the road, the slightest hill took on a new significance, as it gave way to those hidden gorges on either side, deep valleys of evergreens, spindly birches, snaking rivers that wound among silvery piles of rocks. The slightest bend in the road loomed, then leapt away, opening paths of sight into the far-off hills. By the time we arrived in Lakewood, Ohio, the sense of difference had taken a subtle hold on everything I saw. I stared at the snow on the streets, as if time had slowed down along with my breath, and I could see it melting into the grey puddles. I walked down the block, noting how wide the streets were, how empty they appeared, how the sky seemed to sink lower here, down the wide, flat expanse of this town. A quiet town. Main street was mostly closed down for the day. I trekked to the sullen-looking stadium, where the cold sun struck the bleachers again and again and the broad space inside glowed silently.

Across from me, I see an old Chinese couple with a plaid suitcase in between them. One, the woman, wears white shoes. The man wears black. He sits with his legs apart, knees jutting out from his ankles. The woman has crossed her legs. They push up against the suitcase. The woman looks to the left with an expression of intense disapproval, as if, to one side, sat a group of rowdy children, twiddling with cell phones and lacking in supervision. The man gazes half at me and half away, so that one of his eyes seems to be focused on something in the distance.

Inside this car, three African drummers are playing their second piece for three African drums. The man taps his fingers rhythmically against his crotch. The woman bobs the ankle of her crossed leg. At this moment, the two live entirely independent lives; their faces barely look at each other. And yet, occasionally, still without looking anywhere, they mutter to each other in Mandarin. The woman’s voice is loud and disappointed, the man’s soft and needling.

I wonder if they know where they are going, or if they will stay in the train, staring straight ahead, each unwilling to leave before the other, each unwilling to let the other leave. The woman’s upper lip sticks out as if she were perpetually saying, “No.” The man’s lower lip is locked in an imploring pout. Both have crossed their arms in front of their chests. Over the drums, the woman begins to shout.

And yet I believe the snow is alive

If not, then how does the winter sky

Cradle the roofs of the houses?

Holding someone is like this.

You give in to the silent world

The black leaves drift on the lake

Remember how, when you swam alone

Your hair spilled out in the dark water

like the reflection of a floating candle

and the very image that you saw

became that candle drifting away from you.

But then you lay down on the dock, shivering

you—a woman who was born to swim,

Your chin always underwater, your eyes staring up

At the sky as clear as the city after a parade

An asphalt sky, with its fallen paper stars

Scattered in handfuls, thrown out of pockets

And they were the people in the crowd—

those folds of the fog that took you in among them—

When you spoke to them, it was as if you slept

Again in the dark water, the reflection of a star

All through the winter, you slept soundly

You smelled of sleep and of sweat

Like a sailor who’d been away for a long time

Quietly, you knocked on your sister’s door

You climbed the stairs for the first time.

So we would sometimes sit by our windows

As children, accepting the years as like those black leaves,

Accepting those slow changes, ancient and all-absorbing,

yet falling, nonetheless—or were the leaves stitched

together, like a veil that whispered shyly, touching your face.

Explorers, you see, don’t always find what they set out to

For they believe in what they haven’t found yet.

Was that what I promised you, my child, in our house

when i was building it for you. don’t you see that i’m

still building it, that i the wind swept me away like a black

leaf, swept me for years, over the earth and to unknown places

inside me—inside me then, or was it not yet in me.

was I like a painter looking out his window at the whole city

inhaling the smell of smoke, the smell of snow,

accepting the night, its silent branches—

are we the prisoners of such small wars—

between the winter and the snow,

aloneness and togetherness,

between being born and giving up,

yes, it must be true, because when i was young,

I watched the sunset redden through the car window—

and passing it felt i was also burning a part of myself

and I grabbed a pen and, scribbling, dreamed

that I was hurling a a candle into a lake of light

and, like the sun, trying to light the extinguishing

day—although you may never reach yourself again,

now you are no longer young, and time, a silver gate

opens into the darkness, the way a single

flash of lightening might open up the whole sky

entering the snow, and everything we see.

The yellow roses straddling the fence

disappeared in between the days—

It must have been that each day

grew around a separate feeling, took

shape from them, then spiraled

inwards—taking the feelings away

quietly, so that i did not see them.

my body also grew wider, stiffening,

and yet also letting my shadow,

which i had trapped at my center,

push out through me—as if, being young

i were always leaning out

an open window—trying to see

through the magnolia tree’s many veils

i remember finding the nest that the wasps

built in the doorframe, resting there—

high up, a living thing—i touched it

with one finger—it crumbled. i felt that i

could also become dust. above me, moths

inherited the light of the porch lamp

like a galaxy of stars that needed

to be lit again—my legs climbed

up into the night. my breasts sank.

my arms stretched out happily.

i understood no part of my body—

how water ran over it—how

flowers grew on it—how, at night,

a spark can travel far from its star—farther

than it has ever gone before—

how you can see your body

as you saw it on the first day—

remember how it needed you?

remember wanting to stay here forever?