drmstream[writing]

What I look at in one moment doesn’t exist in the next. What I see I can’t remem­ber. I can’t see it ever again. What I try to meld comes apart, what I try to tell becomes inco­her­ent. Images con­nect and dis­con­nect like the spray­ing frac­tals of the win­ter sun­light play­ing on the ever fainter mem­o­ries that […]

I The bath­room is a squared-off bit of dry­wall at the far back of the garage. It’s in Chelsea, near to the river, where the streets get wider and the air car­ries some of the fra­grance of the salt off the ocean. As you walk back to the dark door of the bath­room, slip­ping sideways […]

Objects become arti­facts despite them­selves. They are placed for a pur­pose, are defined in that moment by their util­ity, and then aban­doned to the kinetic decay of iner­tia. In that decay, they dis­cover a disheveled grace, like an aged beauty cap­tured in a soul-searing smile. Look around you today. What can you see that was […]

When I take a pho­to­graph, I’m look­ing for the light. Then, as I retouch it, I’m look­ing for the impres­sion. What I want to accom­plish is to recre­ate the sen­sa­tion when we look at some­thing quickly and are left with equal parts dis­tinct and indis­tinct per­cep­tion. The meld­ing of the two states cre­ates an impression […]

Plate 36 A Har­vest of Death. Get­tys­burg, Penn­syl­va­nia. July 1863 Pho­tographed by Tim­o­thy H. O’Sullivan Slowly, over the misty fields of Gettysburg—as all reluc­tant to expose their ghastly hor­rors to the light—came the sun­less morn, after the retreat by Lee’s bro­ken army. Through the shad­owy vapors, it was, indeed, a “har­vest of death” that was […]

And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew won­drous cold: And ice, mast-high, came float­ing by, As green as emer­ald. And through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dis­mal sheen: Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken — The ice was all between. The ice was here, the ice […]

As dusk falls, the lights on the rides illu­mi­nate and silence seeps into the day. The waves are low. The moon sits high in the sky, aloof but com­fort­able. The night gains momen­tum on the board­walk. You sit on the beach and plunge your hands deep in the sand. The sur­face is cool. Just below, […]

There is no Silence in the Earth — so silent As that endured Which uttered, would dis­cour­age Nature And haunt the World. –Emily Dickinson

I can’t see what­ever you see here. I’m mes­mer­ized by the cast of the eye, the angle of the nose, the gen­tle cherry lips. My heart swells when I stare at the photo and try to deci­pher its aes­thetic. Strange, isn’t it? See, I know there’s some­thing pleas­ing about the photo. That’s why I’m shar­ing it. […]