Reading Robert Bly/Suburban Conversations
father's type of poetry,
had he time to read it before the tumor
had hustled his efficient, booming chemistry down to
frightened unexpected tears and bedrailings,
his wife waiting in the wings, praying.
Robert Bly, blond veteran of great wars,
replaced Nordic farmer,
imagined visionary of all
those things with kitchens attached.
The purchase had made the
cropped close curating cashier
wince in retaining her salesface, keeping
her attraction to complex
beauties while fumbling with apple's ring up app.
I want to tell her that
I already know men in flannels
don't share or fake their fixes,
Noticing this, but touching nothing.
Look at me,
I'll pretend to know your mind too.
Months later I'm reading soberly,
in the land of tasteless milks,
distinguishing another border
where fresh simplicity crosses into pine-knocking
territories of corn and man and christ
where again I have no place,
nor patience for their dismissive dodderings.
Fingering the mythic fuck;
bored, bruised, but smiling.
TRIBUTE TO PHILLIP LEVINE
The noble poor and their robust backs,
that even when prettily slim, still young,
are racked with wiry constellations
of repetition and working asymmetry.
Street smarts create insecurity in hallowed halls,
and do little to assuage a lack of insurance
or the measured mechanics of bureaucracy.
Bold attempts smack baldly of guile, even repulse.
Children, the highest cultured joy,
a chance at future, better tomorrows,
a less grinding continuity, present stars.
Their eyes so boldly wide and undenied.
Possessions take precedence;
family, down-time, meals are present.
Supporting, reinforcing tiny positives, smiles
like crow's feet spreading with iridescent feathers.
The persistent magnanimity of religion,
superstition, old-wives tales ringing true.
Earth feet, litttle levitations,
the persistence of work and another day rising.
CHILDREN OF THE UNIVERSE
Children of the Universe, us,
We compared the holes where our wisdom teeth
had ached, tongues soft with velvet lollings.
I belong and deserve better, and more,
a birthmark strawberry wiped across
my sweaty playful brow.
my sweaty playful brow.
We played pretend, imitating the dramas taught
last sunday from big screens blaring
from the corner of a taupe classroom,
hung with inspirational cartoons.
And we were together everywhere,
having the fun of locusts,
entertained with slowly blackening the sun.
Observing ant hills, wanting to see them stop,
with hands flapping madly, I shrieked for Father.
But Mum was the one; she gathered up the poisons,
casting a sharp shadow while spritzing the insects
back into dust as my friend clapped, dancing.
MY GODDAUGHTER
We're climbing the tree, the very same,
A venusian Maple comical, its
standing next to the dying Walnut,
while tornado chain link yawns below.
Our arms, taut across inner elbows,
longer than usual, are up-stretched, grasping.
A rogue honeysuckle quells the stink of
Immanuel Baptist and tarp's standing water.
She trusts a profile and upraised brows
My god-daughter; her name is Heaven,
and she believes anything.
Demeanor slipping, my face is cracking,
my throat and tongue are telling,
she sneaks a peek, she wants my hair.
Stick straight, white hair, another odd distraction.
Tranquilized I talk too much,
beginning to babble conspiratorially
to a child of nine.
Heaven Honey, listen to me.
"Trust no one, no I don't,
nope not even them.
You have eyes on your back,
use them often and wisely.
Heaven, sweetheart, listen here,
fear is no talisman,
and no better a parent."
DEATH WISH
MY GODDAUGHTER
We're climbing the tree, the very same,
A venusian Maple comical, its
standing next to the dying Walnut,
while tornado chain link yawns below.
Our arms, taut across inner elbows,
longer than usual, are up-stretched, grasping.
A rogue honeysuckle quells the stink of
Immanuel Baptist and tarp's standing water.
She trusts a profile and upraised brows
My god-daughter; her name is Heaven,
and she believes anything.
Demeanor slipping, my face is cracking,
my throat and tongue are telling,
she sneaks a peek, she wants my hair.
Stick straight, white hair, another odd distraction.
Tranquilized I talk too much,
beginning to babble conspiratorially
to a child of nine.
Heaven Honey, listen to me.
"Trust no one, no I don't,
nope not even them.
You have eyes on your back,
use them often and wisely.
Heaven, sweetheart, listen here,
fear is no talisman,
and no better a parent."
DEATH WISH
I'm thinking dying is
Just
The
Best
Way
to be remembered.
And no,
this isn't fatalistic in the least.
Actually,
I stand in Zen Critique
of Death's bad reputation,
and how silly a nom de guerre
it really is.
Because,
for the collective objective mind
or the delicate breast,
death is just the simplest way
to priceless immortality.
Goodbye...
to a better place.
A community where
it's heart is
as open as the sky,
and
"it's ocean has a center".
Damien Crisp, Slave: http://www.damiencrisp.com/slave-expanded.html
WINTER IN SEOUL
I love the wintertimebecause
I've never really known it before
I recognize
the ivory pale mauve
padded light
but the peeling of
damp layers in warm places
and
this
breathing myself walking
this, this is
a great gulping dragon
it's grey stomach clenching it's
yes
truly impressive
I have met the skeleton trees already,
(all those scrabblingempty spaces)
but
the tettering slickness of ice streets,
this cussing treachery
this damn biting cold,
the
hallow sigh of relief upon arrival,
the
echoing fresh survival
will swallow me
it has
everything always
stretching and shrinking
and
i'm so fucking tired
dry heat and tight cold
passing through doorways,
face shrinking,
bracing, making
for the change.
MISS MISSING
The weather is changing.
waking, this morning,
wrapped in the thick folds of my comforter
I felt the first cool touch,
upraised little hairs,
pulled from a deeper sleep than summer ever affords.
Now it is September,
when I last saw you it was May.
I stood, and stretched,
(everything is tighter in autumn good)
padded to make my coffee.
Four apples sit in a row on my shelf,
leaf-green glowing rosy-pink skins testament to
the fall coming through the alley window.
Picking the very best one
it becomes the second season of counting.
waking, this morning,
wrapped in the thick folds of my comforter
I felt the first cool touch,
upraised little hairs,
pulled from a deeper sleep than summer ever affords.
Now it is September,
when I last saw you it was May.
I stood, and stretched,
(everything is tighter in autumn good)
padded to make my coffee.
Four apples sit in a row on my shelf,
leaf-green glowing rosy-pink skins testament to
the fall coming through the alley window.
Picking the very best one
it becomes the second season of counting.
EXHIBITIONS
Hello again,
nice to see you smiling at my face.
the show was good, drank too much,
didn't know that I was saying just what came to mind.
This town makes me smaller and bigger at the same time.
My father was there,
he's so happy these days, talking his trains and
my litttle brother, all of four now.
My mother made food,
my sister, tipsy,
forgot to cut out the cores,
but the apples were still tart and crispy.
Most apt comments of convex curvatures,
and lots of apropos praise. But,
that was already days ago, and of no significance now.
Yesterday, a South Knox Sunday,
hugging not-blood nephews
with scabies and scabbardless swords,
talking, fencing, avoiding elephants.
Waking on Monday to jump, grimacing,
the complexities of the closeness of cunt's hairs,
(a Deadwood term)
the sadness of could-haves and perhaps.
And to map the next distracting projects.
Cat in lap, i map.
AN ASIDE
my new painting is
muddle of an
unbearable crimson
with naples yellow
begging to peer out
of smears of ultramarine
love that cobalt violet
like roundshadows
crossing your face under
southern rattletrap branches
we stood
justbeside the path
and i danced to see that grin
against swathes of sap
remember immensemuddle of an
unbearable crimson
with naples yellow
begging to peer out
of smears of ultramarine
love that cobalt violet
like roundshadows
crossing your face under
southern rattletrap branches
we stood
justbeside the path
and i danced to see that grin
against swathes of sap
alights a
bus ride venice blvd bump.
approaching strangers smile
giving two shits means
it might
come over shoulder thrown
and suprised
right back at cha.
up the tree of me
and then,
i like your pitch
you're good at this.
CHIMERAS CONTINUED
oh,
I did dream last night! About seeing a levitation!
I've been upset cause I can't sleep, don't dream...
But, I did!
even though sleeping like a kitty, fittfully
i just remembered watching someone rise up.
And the people gasp, but it was unsuprising.
Too brief, maybe I can go back tonight...
a day a day a day a day a day a day a day its been a day a day a day a day
it's been quite a day a day a day a day
in the room it's a little gray today today today
i
dreamt that i was locked in a bathroom in a bank.
we live in big tents
of simple skins and synapses separate
but our bodies work the same, strung
with the same stretches of nerves, scales of cell
we live in little buildings
of stone and sparkling glass,
and wood stolen from other systems
then moulded to specifications created by
bugs pushing paper to make
more stiff structures with soft insides.
we live in a big bang,
or a big bump
that circles itself, pumping planets
and twinkling dark places and debris.
perfectly syncing to crash at the explicit,
just the right time
for selfish grasping, with unknown intentions.
we can't truly see, don't want to, don't have to yet.
little big children robbing our eyes. shuffling our feet,
holding hands in the shifting water.
peering for a spot to stop treading.
wondering if the phone will be answered
when it never stops ringing.
BLIP
Of all of the chances to have to build lost bridges,
brick by brick by brick with rounded chalky edges, crumbling,
yours is the... the... horizon just above the watermark,
stained tea dirty and fragrant.
i watch you (myself) wanting the wash
to be finished so that you can get ready for work the next day.
Where-ever did you go? And, for what reason?
Still inside the box, tucked down.
Transparent threads of the bags beneath the eyes, weary,
and still didn't get it all done today again.
And then it's all worth it in the morning,
the sky sapphire (that always comes back again)
fleeced and pulled across the thin pink skin of here.
Your striped shadow with me stripped in this fresh clear day,
faces a little raw smile.
By the way, where have you been all this time?
(so you)( don't you) enjoy the shades of my floation device,
lead balloon, above and below, not knowing,
the wavering stronghold of this now,
the lack of documentation of where i have been waiting, scribbling.
Just for you to join me, to maintain it, to feed the making of honey,
to build a little hive to curl into with the babies, creations,
through greenishgold peepholes, to keep it going, fed.
Yea, it's beautiful.
Splitting the current, like the water, it feeds us well
with crill the tiny shrimp and particles of living open teeth.
Depreciation of... the fucking light is still on.
but without sight, what is there to see,
that i still don't have any feet?
What's the common denominators?
We have ignorance, be tired,
with flashes of light akin to stormy weather,
i want rhythm but it's just visual. i can't hear this now.
no never. Write me instead.
Last night, i fell down again and skinned my knee,
flashed my gash on the way, hussy.
I wrap myself in a cheap comforter,
machine embroidered flowers, simple,
and wish that you were here, so i could want you away again.
Sweet lack of satisfaction the flaps of touching thin skins only
pass the cobaltblue (rich) to ash walls with different ways of feeling,
then the future same as the past. Slim around me and nothing but the trapped eye rollling ineffectiveness of this forever.
Never enough never enough blame depression of the mother,
the father wide pupils passing it on with just
a leafgreen childhood of listening agast.
It's always green these days, flourescent and only fake with the lack the lack the lack of
nevermind it's not coming now.
sorry i drove you away again, it's only biological,
yours was not the only one to leave me alone again.
Hold it, gather in, put into like piles, sorting.
So, i'm still waiting the telegrams to come.
The dancing telegrams to calm.
MISS MISSING CONTINUED
Last Thursday I woke up; a free morning stretching out before me a little lonely with T out of town again. The dog was already awake, peering at me from the foot of the bed. We decided to explore a new area. After a little Google Earthing, we headed out to the Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield area North of Atlanta. It took about 45 min. to get there.
We meandered off the Barrett Pkwy exit and entered a swanky residential neighborhood with huge lots and gated entrances flanking the gently sloping roadway. Sighting an enormous parking lot followed by a split-rail National Park gateway, I pulled into the excessively gigantic parking lot. The usual suspects were scattered across the absurd concrete expanse; lonely folks in parked cars of varying values avoiding eye contact with soccer moms striding confidently towards the paved roadside path, while a couple NorthFace suburban kids prepared for a day hike. No one acknowledged us, and I didn't bother either.
The dog and I jumped a red-clay washout and crossed a broad field kissed with wild phlox in bloom to a footpath on the other side. I tugged the leash off, and she went mundanely feral, snuffling loudly a couple yards ahead or behind me. The mood was determined and the sky was dark as clouds gathered for a show later. There was a particularly animated tree trunk; a Sweet-Gum to be precise, that presented itself to the left, sculpted into a snout facing up and Northeast. We traipsed over the railroad tracks, through another convex field, and onto an overgrown logging path. These broad dirt roads always make me feel so thirsty, so I struck off up the hill, noting the burgeoning poison ivy. A couple weeks and that hill must be impassible even to the most tough people hides.
As we approached the top there was a chair sunk knee deep in leaves facing a burned-out pine with a bum?-fire in the middle. Just the years-cold tracks of either boy-scouts or the intrepid homeless left-behind and sinking in. All signs were a little baneful and very post-human, with felled skeletons looming and their roots forming a colony of underground homes for whatever would nestle there. We continued quietly. I was practicing being very still while moving, doing a little Tom Brown roll with my feet as I high-stepped through more leaf-fall.
Rounding the hill, there were piles of rocks swooping broken-down along the crest of the ridge. Surely, it must be one of the Civil War Battlefields trumpeted on the Nat'l. Park signs. Pretty impressive for a piled up effort two centuries old. I mis-stepped vainly trying too hard to soft-foot, sunk leg-deep into a hole and out again all goose-bumped and suddenly afraid.
"Time to head back to civilization." I said outloud, and strange to the dog.
So we did, passing over the balding top and through the pseudo-graveyard and town. I was feeling even panicky and hurried the dog verbally and often, still weird and discombobulated. She stopped intently by a particularly large, and recently occupied root system. I followed her over to the open mouth of the den, and found her nudging a dead two-tone black canine puppy. It had healthy fur tipped silver in the clear light of spring. She was mis-behaving, whining, her maternal instinct all hackled up. I turned and almost stepped on another puppy, then another, both smaller than the first. All appeared to be healthy, excepting death. Dismayed isn't a strong enough adjective, but the panic was subsiding. These were just some abandoned corpses warming in the early sun on an old battlefield, nothing to be alarmed or suprised about.
As we proceeded past the exposed and mother-less pups, the largest one gave a meek cry and shifted slightly. I couldn't leave him. I felt very purposeful, heroic even, as I whipped off my sweater and pulled his stiff body from the ground.
We hurried back, him curled up and swaying rhythmically in the sweater. Finally arriving back at the Subaru, and thinking of my afternoon plans, I drove to the nearest gas station for water while looking for a vet. I touched his grimy tongue with a wet finger and he mewed some more, and with more vigor. He seemed to be rallying slowly. We found a vet, who advised euthanasia and was out of formula. By the time we found the next vet, the sad little thing was warmed up and squirming. Vet #2 was not so dire and recommended formula, a heating pad, and some wildlife stations nearby. He doesn't look like a dog, probably a coyote.
I decided to go to house nearby that T is renovating in a Northwestern suburb. We stopped on the way for formula and a heating pad. I put the heating pad in a box and him on top, covered with the sweater. My hands itched and I wondered about mites or viruses. I started making phone calls. The two numbers I had were voice-mails, the second stating she was not accepting rehabiliations at this time and to call another number. So I did, smiling at the thought of my persistence paying off. The number yielded a concerned voice with the reassuring advice of formula, heating pad, and time. Their director had just died, they weren't taking animals either. But, she promised to call around.
I went into the garage and painted for a couple hours, checking on him sometimes. He seemed to be having sharp dreams, bad ones. He died I don't know when, his body much colder than the pad when I pulled it up and buried it in the copse of pines out back. It's very easy to dig in sandy soil. That made it easier. I stripped my clothes off and washed them, showered, and put on my spares.
T came in from being out of town and proposed to me at first sight. I was exhausted and started to cry.
I said yes.
chili's bar. chicago airport. 5-15-07
Wanting a bloody mary, nothing but double-shots for 8 dollars and nothing if not frugal (a cheap niceity). I'll eat some xanex soon. Walked beneath the fake skeleton of a recreated brachiosaurus altithorax realizing that i know this airport, but have never stepped foot in the city itself. Ignorance is easily accomplished,
yeah, i've been there.
The first twinge of loss, passing with a tugging of my skirt over the heart in a sunshine circle drawn on my knee by a seal shedding stranger skin in a distant tender moment.
yeah, i've been there.
The first twinge of loss, passing with a tugging of my skirt over the heart in a sunshine circle drawn on my knee by a seal shedding stranger skin in a distant tender moment.
Chili's bar, sitting so close to people i will never know. Worrying about bodily concerns such as the affect of broccoli cheddar soup on my digestive tract, sorry seat-mate.
We all know airports invariably cause people to eat a lot of bad food, and there had better not be any bacon in my soup. Sorry seat-mate.
We all know airports invariably cause people to eat a lot of bad food, and there had better not be any bacon in my soup. Sorry seat-mate.
Hey, I've been to Toyko too.
The sense of not listening by virtue of jumbled audio receptors is definately enhanced by being in a place where nothing makes sense. Nope, I still don't understand you.
The sense of not listening by virtue of jumbled audio receptors is definately enhanced by being in a place where nothing makes sense. Nope, I still don't understand you.
Fuzzy from the 13hour flight and pieces of bar, impassioned conversation across from me included numerous gutteral shushes accompanied by handwaving--what are they talking about? their bosses, the new love in her life, a refriderator?
Fast flight to Seoul. The man next to me is rotting on the inside. He smells worse than death, still alive, kind eyes, wants to talk. Oh, my god. I offer him gum, he accepts and continues. Pakistani, sells heavy equipment, lonely,
he radiates with quiet unacknowledged illness.
I fall asleep and vividly dream that he lays across the tray above my lap,
I must tell him politely no. The stewardesses will not do it for me.
he radiates with quiet unacknowledged illness.
I fall asleep and vividly dream that he lays across the tray above my lap,
I must tell him politely no. The stewardesses will not do it for me.
I arrive at my destination with all my papers in order.
Walking through the sundust days of rest, I spy a handmade cage swelling with grass still sweet, crinkling with memories of the field. The bars are lashed together with bright yellow unraveling thick ropes, and completely open in the front.
"Is this for viewing purposes?" we ask each other.
The shrinking grass pads the bottom for some odd creature that swings trapeze above it. Two of them, in fact, curled on hooks. Like to children's flash cards of caterpillars as anything I have ever seen. Little snakes, clumsy, compacted, cute even, but eyeless, which would eliminate any inkling of a cuddle, or even a quick fingerstroke. My small companion, big with the bravery of childhood refuses to even look and in her eyes closing stumbles, knocking the enclosure.
The curl (like a newborn fat finger releasing) goes jumping, changing, growing spider legs, thick and jointed, out of the open bars and onto the wet concrete floor. Skittering away with typical terrific speed into the freedom of the zoo viewing area. The day becomes tinted with magenta and we continue to the tigers.
While leaking with the orange-striped, pacing, eyelined rolling paws, you are reminded of your own lost patient passions. The day stays pinkish, sunny-yellow retreating, we sit arrested, grey in the knowledge of our complicity in the creation of the zoo.
boys in dreams
Fuck Elsewhere, and fuck worrying about it.
"Is this for viewing purposes?" we ask each other.
The shrinking grass pads the bottom for some odd creature that swings trapeze above it. Two of them, in fact, curled on hooks. Like to children's flash cards of caterpillars as anything I have ever seen. Little snakes, clumsy, compacted, cute even, but eyeless, which would eliminate any inkling of a cuddle, or even a quick fingerstroke. My small companion, big with the bravery of childhood refuses to even look and in her eyes closing stumbles, knocking the enclosure.
The curl (like a newborn fat finger releasing) goes jumping, changing, growing spider legs, thick and jointed, out of the open bars and onto the wet concrete floor. Skittering away with typical terrific speed into the freedom of the zoo viewing area. The day becomes tinted with magenta and we continue to the tigers.
While leaking with the orange-striped, pacing, eyelined rolling paws, you are reminded of your own lost patient passions. The day stays pinkish, sunny-yellow retreating, we sit arrested, grey in the knowledge of our complicity in the creation of the zoo.
boys in dreams
Fuck Elsewhere, and fuck worrying about it.
I had this dream last night and you were in it. We were walking cross hill and dale, over little bridges, and everything was very soft and green, bright like spring. We meandered through a clipped well tended English style lawn, with wild swooping borders of heavy petals and large leaves. There was ivy everywhere. An empty birdbath sat in the middle of the yard and in the center was a spiderweb with large jewels woven into the fabric of the thing. A table sat next to the bath with many more sparkling trinkets with a sign that read 7.87$ sale. You picked up a particularly gorgeous faceted transparent ruby and tossed it, you knew already that it was a fucking top. As it flew through air, a telescoping nose needle came out and as it hit the ground it began to spin perfectly, throwing light everywhere across the garden. I was transfixed by this and all the wealth suspended in the web and spread across the table.
So the man that lived in the victorian house that the lawn surrounded came out. He was big in body and enormous in presence. He began to talk, louder and louder, rebutting the space for existing around him, in his way. I felt very small and shadowed, as if he were pulling mass away from me to feed his ravenous form. I realized that it was actually the purpose of the stupid flawless jewels in the yardsale. You were not disturbed and simply turned your chin up and looked him in the face and said, hey, I know who you are. Your name is ....
I think it was robert something.
I don't know.
You were quite unruffled and a touch heroically boyish.
As you are hopefully feeling right now.
I'm not wooing you, just sending you my brainwave,
I thought you might appreciate the boost.
So I just finished my Thursday, a long one as always, but not a bad day. I came down from the spa and caught a red flash in the corner. I almost passed by and turned around after suddenly remembering the dream. It was the plastic crimson cover for some random red light. The same dimensions as the tossed top from the dream. So I picked it up and am looking at it now.
i met my mother last night in a dream,
it sounded like sustained short hair.
meeting in the street being told to sit
magnamionously doing so
knowing she'd been only fourteen
named birdie
and watching as she giggled with the boy on the mattress dragged
from inside the school bus that he'd watched me from earlier.
so much smiling on that street, no tears
you know this means that we have to read,
but i'm over suckers now,
i think it was something that i had heard,
and clung to before.
i spoke about it with Laurel,
half-sister (not full blood),
giggling, she agreed, and i miss her so,
the boy was clearwater, with those eyes, and bad teeth
and the schoolbus you climbed out of everyyear with a new
big dog, and watching you beat it, for its own sake, the sake of disciplining
something unable to resist. at least that's what you said in my sleep.
at fourteen i flirted with your girlfriend, raven, i wanted under her wing.
but it never happened, and she never came back after that year.
i heard she went native and started fucking a redneck, had a few kids.
irregardless, i'll never forget her fairy pugnose, and clumping hair tendrils.
and it was all just the way it was.
and that's just the way it is.
About a week and half ago I had this big dream about being in school. I've dreamt of school buildings my entire life, always holding them as security, reveling in the atmosphere of chosen schedule and the shying at the corners full of thing I don't know, fascinated blushing stammering. I need these things. Structure and to be awed. I was taking classes on the lowest level, and didn't even know it. Simpleton and completely inarticulate, there was practically a dunce cap on my little pea head. The snow began falling, a blizzard day coming; and so I stayed meandering through the block hallways. This school was obviously underfunded, you can tell by the lighting.I was thinking of the treacherous bus ride home, and decided to stay the night. I found a stairwell and began to make my way up, peering out the windows of the second story, the view was so much more, so much more, it took my breath away. The stairs to the next were crumbling, clinging to the wall precariously. There was institutional faded green paint peeling from the cracks where the stairs were beginning to pull from the wall. I lifted myself up, scaled the wall using the muscles of my shoulders more easily than I had expected. The door was payne's gray, the door handle had a little tag, which I could not read. The top was a towering library, and all around the center stacks were reading tables full of people who never left, snow or no snow. I realized that I had been invited to enter one of the little rounded warm womb rooms that bordered the room. It was a great honour, and there was a little wrinkled smile waiting for me inside. I came in, it was dark, smelled like euclyptus, and very warm. Paramount comfort, Oh, I was happy. He grinned at me and we began to talk. We wrapped ourselves in the blankets, foreheads pressed together, indian-style, facing each other. Oh, we were talking. We both realized that he had a hard-on at about the same time. He became very uncomfortable, and I got up and left at his mumbled request. I didn't want to go, actually didn't see a problem, but he wanted to tell me things, not screw. I was embarrassed for his unvoluntary response to my presence. He was hard from thinking about my soft untutored self, and I realized a little how sweet it is to be without hard edges. I got up and wandered through the library, occasionally glancing out the window at the storm. And then I went back, carefully he smiled and I sat across the little domed room from him in the dark and we talked some more. I loved him, actually. And he loved me, but was devoted to celibacy, and the pursuit of knowledge, I suppose. I stayed all night, we played music, drums.
I woke up reassured and lonely.
I've been looking forward to returning to my dreams all day, everyday for weeks It all started with the teeth, after I had them extracted and slept all day. My body became used to it; healing, needing the rest and responding to the cold outside. I remember being surrounded by a representative of all I've ever wanted in a man holding me, pushing the laptop carelessly to the floor, kissing and looking at me wonderingly to ask about the taste of powder moth wings beating incessantly in my mouth. I was watching the dragonflies above the field that outside is now tilled and frozen mounds of dirt, the space between where we work. I don't know why sometimes I dream of people I barely know. I never dream of the occupants of my waking days. I had a dog before I came here. She went everywhere with me, literally; classes, work, long road trips. Thomas used to wake up and talk about how little Ten had been in this dream or that, but I never dreamt of her. She was my closest companion for eight years. Well, once, when she was a pup, I dreamt I pulled her tail off when training her to not piss the rug.
4 am
I am not as strong as I thought I was.
I feel a little quiet these days, always unless singing. Not much to say that feels cohesive, guess that's just the nature of the Neptunian beast. But, full of calm sun on my shoulders during lunch break, and no dread. Again, thinking alot about money. I've been wrinkling my forehead about that paper since my first grubby hand stolen grocery treat. I'm so drifting, not myself quite yet.
What was I doing two years ago...I had just returned from my first trip to Seoul, living in that trailer with Thomas and the pups, sleeping on the blanketed floor, out of laundry baskets, fake grey wood paneling, a train through the mini badland outside to mark the hours. Working in the studio on some shit that was just lines on board and smoky effect, pretty technique, twist flick wrist, put it in action, don't precious, just keep wiping on that love. Stepping in puddles, receiving parking tickets. Smoking alot of pot, a little cocaine. Sad at the end in sight, pulling my fingers through the new grey streaks looking for a way out.
Five years ago, in love, awed spinning astonded, sleeping in the rolling hills on Bucky's wide back, plaiting his mane, I miss the horses, split rail fences, Tazewell Tennessee. Learning the names of ornamentals, memorizing the uses of cattail roots, the patterns of wood sorrel, sleeping in open mouth caves with double zipped sleeping bags. Just beginning art school, learning quickly, relieved to have made the decision to try, taking out loans I'm now repaying. Thinking I could be on the other side of secure. I was 22, a late bloomer.
Ten years ago, jesus christ, rolling faces and 1600 speed film at all the parties, none of the photos ever turned out the way they looked that night. Atlanta hotel rooms, the afterparty couches, my screaming brain cells. picking through the morning light, peering at piles of people to find mine. I love to dance til I can't stand it anymore, stumble outside to ingest and regroup. dirtydirty bathrooms, unbelievable sensation. rinse and repeat. Basslines, the Amen break.
Fifteen years ago, Miss Trix Alot the pony was my best friend, I could stand on her back to a trot, afternoons bareback through the sideways sunlight. Daffodils come up in the forest in late February, spearing their rounded buds through the powdery last year leaves. At twelve I feel disgusting unless alone.
am I able to remember accurately the details of seven? Surely not. Melodie and the gaggle of girls, Mommas with long hair and smoky fingers, Pops is very very sad and slantmouthed. I'm sorry and busy learning the school yard perimeter.
That's as far as it goes back. I have a memory of a tense moment concerning a bottle of milk sitting on a mattress in the farmhouse, Moms and Pops were both there, so I was younger than three...
An old poem from L.A.
hey, mr. look at
that hole these
crumbling ginger toes
damp and found again
entonces,
the swallow swoops to
steal her glass eye,
and lonely, and
the nothing neverending,
then the violets peering
all
heliotrope with
sunshine spots and
smelling salts and
some corset tight
deep drag
stringy strong sir you never,
somehow feel a silly woman now,
but again, no lady slander you,
remember no atavism allowed.
i met my mother last night in a dream,
it sounded like sustained short hair.
meeting in the street being told to sit
magnamionously doing so
knowing she'd been only fourteen
named birdie
and watching as she giggled with the boy on the mattress dragged
from inside the school bus that he'd watched me from earlier.
so much smiling on that street, no tears
you know this means that we have to read,
but i'm over suckers now,
i think it was something that i had heard,
and clung to before.
i spoke about it with Laurel,
half-sister (not full blood),
giggling, she agreed, and i miss her so,
the boy was clearwater, with those eyes, and bad teeth
and the schoolbus you climbed out of everyyear with a new
big dog, and watching you beat it, for its own sake, the sake of disciplining
something unable to resist. at least that's what you said in my sleep.
at fourteen i flirted with your girlfriend, raven, i wanted under her wing.
but it never happened, and she never came back after that year.
i heard she went native and started fucking a redneck, had a few kids.
irregardless, i'll never forget her fairy pugnose, and clumping hair tendrils.
and it was all just the way it was.
and that's just the way it is.
About a week and half ago I had this big dream about being in school. I've dreamt of school buildings my entire life, always holding them as security, reveling in the atmosphere of chosen schedule and the shying at the corners full of thing I don't know, fascinated blushing stammering. I need these things. Structure and to be awed. I was taking classes on the lowest level, and didn't even know it. Simpleton and completely inarticulate, there was practically a dunce cap on my little pea head. The snow began falling, a blizzard day coming; and so I stayed meandering through the block hallways. This school was obviously underfunded, you can tell by the lighting.I was thinking of the treacherous bus ride home, and decided to stay the night. I found a stairwell and began to make my way up, peering out the windows of the second story, the view was so much more, so much more, it took my breath away. The stairs to the next were crumbling, clinging to the wall precariously. There was institutional faded green paint peeling from the cracks where the stairs were beginning to pull from the wall. I lifted myself up, scaled the wall using the muscles of my shoulders more easily than I had expected. The door was payne's gray, the door handle had a little tag, which I could not read. The top was a towering library, and all around the center stacks were reading tables full of people who never left, snow or no snow. I realized that I had been invited to enter one of the little rounded warm womb rooms that bordered the room. It was a great honour, and there was a little wrinkled smile waiting for me inside. I came in, it was dark, smelled like euclyptus, and very warm. Paramount comfort, Oh, I was happy. He grinned at me and we began to talk. We wrapped ourselves in the blankets, foreheads pressed together, indian-style, facing each other. Oh, we were talking. We both realized that he had a hard-on at about the same time. He became very uncomfortable, and I got up and left at his mumbled request. I didn't want to go, actually didn't see a problem, but he wanted to tell me things, not screw. I was embarrassed for his unvoluntary response to my presence. He was hard from thinking about my soft untutored self, and I realized a little how sweet it is to be without hard edges. I got up and wandered through the library, occasionally glancing out the window at the storm. And then I went back, carefully he smiled and I sat across the little domed room from him in the dark and we talked some more. I loved him, actually. And he loved me, but was devoted to celibacy, and the pursuit of knowledge, I suppose. I stayed all night, we played music, drums.
I woke up reassured and lonely.
I've been looking forward to returning to my dreams all day, everyday for weeks It all started with the teeth, after I had them extracted and slept all day. My body became used to it; healing, needing the rest and responding to the cold outside. I remember being surrounded by a representative of all I've ever wanted in a man holding me, pushing the laptop carelessly to the floor, kissing and looking at me wonderingly to ask about the taste of powder moth wings beating incessantly in my mouth. I was watching the dragonflies above the field that outside is now tilled and frozen mounds of dirt, the space between where we work. I don't know why sometimes I dream of people I barely know. I never dream of the occupants of my waking days. I had a dog before I came here. She went everywhere with me, literally; classes, work, long road trips. Thomas used to wake up and talk about how little Ten had been in this dream or that, but I never dreamt of her. She was my closest companion for eight years. Well, once, when she was a pup, I dreamt I pulled her tail off when training her to not piss the rug.
4 am
I am not as strong as I thought I was.
I feel a little quiet these days, always unless singing. Not much to say that feels cohesive, guess that's just the nature of the Neptunian beast. But, full of calm sun on my shoulders during lunch break, and no dread. Again, thinking alot about money. I've been wrinkling my forehead about that paper since my first grubby hand stolen grocery treat. I'm so drifting, not myself quite yet.
What was I doing two years ago...I had just returned from my first trip to Seoul, living in that trailer with Thomas and the pups, sleeping on the blanketed floor, out of laundry baskets, fake grey wood paneling, a train through the mini badland outside to mark the hours. Working in the studio on some shit that was just lines on board and smoky effect, pretty technique, twist flick wrist, put it in action, don't precious, just keep wiping on that love. Stepping in puddles, receiving parking tickets. Smoking alot of pot, a little cocaine. Sad at the end in sight, pulling my fingers through the new grey streaks looking for a way out.
Five years ago, in love, awed spinning astonded, sleeping in the rolling hills on Bucky's wide back, plaiting his mane, I miss the horses, split rail fences, Tazewell Tennessee. Learning the names of ornamentals, memorizing the uses of cattail roots, the patterns of wood sorrel, sleeping in open mouth caves with double zipped sleeping bags. Just beginning art school, learning quickly, relieved to have made the decision to try, taking out loans I'm now repaying. Thinking I could be on the other side of secure. I was 22, a late bloomer.
Ten years ago, jesus christ, rolling faces and 1600 speed film at all the parties, none of the photos ever turned out the way they looked that night. Atlanta hotel rooms, the afterparty couches, my screaming brain cells. picking through the morning light, peering at piles of people to find mine. I love to dance til I can't stand it anymore, stumble outside to ingest and regroup. dirtydirty bathrooms, unbelievable sensation. rinse and repeat. Basslines, the Amen break.
Fifteen years ago, Miss Trix Alot the pony was my best friend, I could stand on her back to a trot, afternoons bareback through the sideways sunlight. Daffodils come up in the forest in late February, spearing their rounded buds through the powdery last year leaves. At twelve I feel disgusting unless alone.
am I able to remember accurately the details of seven? Surely not. Melodie and the gaggle of girls, Mommas with long hair and smoky fingers, Pops is very very sad and slantmouthed. I'm sorry and busy learning the school yard perimeter.
That's as far as it goes back. I have a memory of a tense moment concerning a bottle of milk sitting on a mattress in the farmhouse, Moms and Pops were both there, so I was younger than three...
An old poem from L.A.
hey, mr. look at
that hole these
crumbling ginger toes
damp and found again
entonces,
the swallow swoops to
steal her glass eye,
and lonely, and
the nothing neverending,
then the violets peering
all
heliotrope with
sunshine spots and
smelling salts and
some corset tight
deep drag
stringy strong sir you never,
somehow feel a silly woman now,
but again, no lady slander you,
remember no atavism allowed.
