drmstream[writing]

  There are images that stay fresh and imme­di­ate years after they first occur to you. These are the images that tell you how you see the world. Metaphoric leit­mo­tifs. They are words but they are so real that we don’t rec­og­nize them as words. Our wiring fires and takes us out of the time Now. […]

Some­times when I talk I hear my voice echo­ing in my head so I stop. In mid-gesture, mid-sentence, I’ll stop and go fol­low the echo. The moment that I am in — that absolute instance of inter­ac­tion — is sep­a­rate and unique from any other moment and I want to com­mu­ni­cate in a pre­cise and fresh way. The […]

This pic­ture was taken at dusk in early May in my bed­room. I was 17 and fin­ish­ing up my final year of high school. My class­mate Eduardo was respon­si­ble for tak­ing the year­book pho­tographs; I was one of the hold-outs on his list. I was shy and dis­ori­ented. I still have the pho­to­graph that Eduardo […]

  You worked hard to keep us from see­ing you straight on, didn’t you? That was hard, I imag­ine, when you walked through your day with a cam­era around your neck. No, you put your­self on the other side. The other side of what, that’s what I won­der. Was it the other side of life altogether? […]

When I was a boy, my mother would tell me that she had been a fat girl. I didn’t know what to make of it.  She wasn’t fat when she said it, and even when she would com­plain that she was fat, I’d think to myself that she was small and slim and not like all […]

Imag­ine tak­ing 5 pho­tographs a day for 50 years. After 18,250 days, you would have more than 100,000 pho­tographs. You would have stepped out of the flow, peered through your viewfinder and cap­tured a sin­gle moment more than 100,000 dif­fer­ent times. What else will you have done out of inten­tion, out­side of the flow, more than 100,000 […]

  I What use are feel­ings, but to bind you to some­thing that doesn’t exist and can never be recov­ered? II Open the hollow-core door under the stairs.  The oil heater is pushed against the bot­tom of the steps.  Indus­trial green.  Soot stained where the main­te­nance man shifted his weight to push the igniter back […]

Part Two: What’s Going On? Reck­less, urgent, hun­gry? Seiz­ing the moment, mea­sur­ing out rea­son to sus­tain the mad­ness needed to make that true love take root in the dri­est ground? Empty, des­per­ate? — What do you think of me? — You’re going to take over the world. — Is that why you won’t open up to me? Soft, chocolate […]

  First, sink the foun­da­tions.  Pro­ceed slowly, make sure that each load-bearing point is set firm and square.  There’s no vis­i­ble progress and patience, an under­stand­ing of the big pic­ture, is required. Then, erect the frame.  Dis­trib­ute the force of the beams and gird­ers across the bear­ing loads. You have made the skele­ton, strung the tendons. […]

It is time to leave now. When it started, it was time to go.  Pick up and go from your home.  Take a bag.  Go live in this ‘camp’ behind barbed wire fences and men with guns. You have nar­row eyes.  Your lips are thin.  Your skin is dif­fer­ent.  You have to go away. Because you might kill […]