p a i n t i n g

d r a w i n g

s c u l p t u r e

t a r o t

v i d e o

w r i t i n g

a b o u t

p u p p e t s

this is a diary or a travelogue or a book of poems or a journal of dreams. it is lies or true. starts in 2007, to now. (excuse the missing numbers, my life has been edited)

1.

outrageous lies

when I lie, they are always outrageous

its pathological

a call to be called out

everyone knows I’m full of shit

but every one is

so who cares?

its pathologically outrageous

outrageous, maaan, totally out there

mental

you know.

a natural state of being, caffeinated. it’s a no-name corner caferteria-slash-liquor store somewhere south where the weather pretends to be warm, and the coffee is okay, and served black, and bitter, and refills are free. the man in the booth next to me is speaking portuguese into a pay phone. the drugs are here- at three thirty, I become a child.

new eyes, newly opened.

the regular wendesday special, free refills.

no more new eyes for me.

checkers.

and the elegant mexican women in their long shawls pound out the tortillas into the hot sun, pound out the pork lard and the lime, pound the corn and the flour, pound the dinner table as they pound their children into respectable young men and ladies, pounded into church, pounded into fat greedy little bastids all ears and no eyes, all spit and no polish, all set to marry some rich polish fucker and run off the wankerville, away from the sun and lime and ceramic tiles of youth.

snap snap.

and this little kid- couldn’t be more than 16, freshly outfitted in his hipster jeans and white v neck shirt, legs legs legs and rooster hair, walks up to me, nonchalant, sucking a cigarette stolen out of daddy’s briefcase, and he sticks his tongue out a little. straightens the bandana. and says

‘hey little buddha. lost your zen?’

nonchalant, a little off balance maybe, sort of standing on one leg as if he was trying to save space, actually Save Space in this deserted shit-hole of a donut shop, trying to usher in more of his shadow, his better side

‘where is your head at?’

he taps his cigarette, the shop girl eyeing ashes and smoke with a disdain most generally reserved for hippies and high school dropouts, herself being one, knowing and forgetting that everyone in the place is high and drunk and dumb and spaced, getting by, getting by, on cheap thrills and cheap coffee

‘we are not on the same level here. it is a shame.’

and a shame it was, the little white ferret goes and gets a half dozen donut holes and sits in the booth across the stained tile checkered floor and I try to remember if I KNOW him, really KNOW him, but things aren’t getting anywhere and I resign to watch the sky fuck up with all its angels and energies., angels and eternities, and wowee zowee what a place to be at 3:42- only three forty two?- on a wendesday afternoon, what an absolute mindfuck you might say, with the coffee and the checkers and the ferret boys trying to make room for their shadows, all the shadowy figurines checkering across the stained chess board, all playing on the big fat chess board and fucking it up further with every step they take.

what a metaphor.

life, maaan. paaatholgical…. mental, maaan, brutal, man, but absolutely mental.

wowee zowee, pudding and pie

kiss the girls and make them cry.

what a METAPHOR.

2.

we’re not sleeping again. its these strange flashes of empathy.

that wake me up, I mean. at 5 am, I inexplicably care.

I like this city. no-one knows me here. I can sit on a street corner all day- pretending! pretending?- to laugh and jitter and mutter and blink, the shudder from my spine and pigeon shit benches and twist the rings in my lips and cry and whine all big eyes and spindly arms oversized jacket charms contrite- to be, what my goal to be

crazy

and on good days I challenge the old men to chess. I have never won. they are brilliant, beat me in three moves, ten if I’m lucky, twenty if they’re bored, want a pretty young thing at their table, a change of pace from all the old, broken, wise men, sitting on a corner, gesturing at tourists, oh, no charge, no charge, just a little bet huh fancy yourself a smarty? beat an old man at chess? got 10 minutes to spare, sit down, sit Down my friend!

and in those few fast words- you are hooked by ‘friendship’

as is- a friend

Hah

I want to dance.

3.

when I miss you I twist the rings on my fingers

like you gave them to me

not that I’d really want you too, it just seems so natural

like that time I dropped the big silver one down the drain

and when you fished it out

and handed it back

we both kind of held our breath

pretending we were older, and pretending we cared that much

10.

lost up in the woods now, but well taken care of- sunshine and electric lights, and dry air and 90s pop songs screamed into oregon wilderness, empty places, all wrapped up in a converted barn with windows and wallpaper and linoleum flooring.  there were eight of us- eight young muddy, lost children; not even legal, not even caring. we had too much food, too much air, too much healthy outdoor exercise, all leading to complete and utter laziness; barefoot, burned, bruised, bleeding and infected, our clothes and hair and bodies torn and naked and stripped of city convenience- overlooked subtleties like laundry soap foaming over our lips and minds. we were simple things, concerned with simple tasks. we pushed branches downhill, pulled plants by their roots and heads, for the illusion that we were- helpful? pure physical exhaustion became the addiction- out of weed, wine, trips, cigarettes, all days from civilizations, could have been weeks, could have been- it wouldn’t have mattered. even our clocks stopped working.

and like clockwork every afternoon I would stagger into 3 pm midday heat, 102, pick my way barefoot over sticker burs and pebbles and broken glass to humble humanity and sit and see things that peeled my eyelashes back, stuck them to my cheekbones- insects and grasshoppers, chewing the wooden flats and me not having the heart to stop them. I read the wallpapered news, outdated as it were- read about war and terrorism and firefighters and lost little heroines and fathers gone bad with a real schoolgirl innocence, wild-eyed, removed and turned soft, calluses now real on my hands and lacking in my soul.

it had been three months since I picked up a paper- I was afraid to step back into that stream of civilization and it was coming, no doubt about it- the summer dream was ending, we were winding down, we were tired, day gone dead in the heat and silly little rhymes to occupy our time. responsibility caught up, and ow, did it sting.

three months without news, three months without parents, three months without rain. everyone was getting antsy- playing cards to bury hostilities. naked, golden and tan, sweet little creatures, some of us missing boys and home and coffeeshops and showers, some of us just missing, some of us..

we watched the cars go by. down our winding strip of highway, over the hills and zooming- we could hear them from the next mountain, stop work and stand and watch them pass. they were big, usually, but not trucks- campers mostly, on vacation or permanents, driving around, pitching rv tents. the rest were farmers, usually, the lonely dark and dusty type that holds and holds onto their little plot of bare grass and spits at the woods and coyotes and governments and food prices and lives and spits and lives. the most interesting passers were the motorcycles, always alone, always hurtling, sometimes in leather and always looking wild, windblown, tired, and crazed. they, unlike the others, never returned our smiles or looks and waves. they- driven- flapped for miles.

we were stuck- we couldn’t join the travelers in their ripping down the highways, couldn’t move on, we laughed and walked- walked hours- over mountain fields and fallen rocks and golden yellow prairie grass between the pine trees- for a phone, for a conversation with The Outside, big and scary but o, oh, so far away. and it was okay. expected, reasonable, time so cheap, walking.

we do a lot of walking.

   

11.

she was not married to her grief, no- rather it had been welcomed into her home hastily, dramatically, with much dusting, washing and shoving which does very little to actually clean. although Grief had never been exactly invited he was perhaps needed and if not loved, certainly respected, cared for, a distant but undeniable relative down on his luck. times are hard, after all- families simply don’t care like they did in those bleak, black-clad yesteryears.

the grief had never intended to stay, of course. his quarters would eternally look like a guest room, sparse, sterile, untouched. he would quietly make the bed in the morning and never exchanged the prepacked picture frame faces for his own. even Grief felt the slight awkwardness of his intrusion, but she had found no other suitable housemate, so he stayed. the cohabitation had been long and, as if to remedy violent confrontations common decades ago, they had structured their lives to exist in separate circles. her house was ever so large, and Grief, though by no feat of the imagination small, was shrinking with his considerable years.

once- just once- she took him to bed. she was a strong woman, not easily sold by the allure, the accessibility, the quite real, if fleeting comfort, but the need still existed. for this, the Grief forgave her. despite the fact that she was old now, the grief still held her beauty above all else- if anything, her attraction had increased with silver hair and worn hands. he worshipped it, and so when she was illuminated in the sunny morning making coffee, or surrounded by her great grandchildren on a trip to the park, or even in a quiet moment’s respite with the crossword, he was far too shy to approach her. only when she was disheveled- sick- sad- could there be any chance at their union. despite the rarity, the Grief never missed once.

but the love affair was tepid now. it held no longer the burning, aching needs of youth, no breathless longing. as she filled her mind with other things, Grief let her go. there were days he lay in bed, sick, or went to crouch in the cellars to avoid her growing radiance. there were days he went out- met other women, other men, stayed with them a spell. but he was irrevocably turned out, and he always was drawn back to her beautiful face, room, heart, life. she never spoke a word against him; let him fill up the holes still healing. Grief loved her to the end of his days.

18.

sitting stoned, alone, wandering through the empty quiet rooms of my parent’s house, sunlit, the hum of green and growing things around me, lost in mindless silence- old trinkets, toys, puzzles locked in closets- I lay on my sister’s bed and watch her ceiling for a minute, curtains in and out with the breeze, clean air from the front porch- chocolate milk stolen from the fridge, and I look at my kitchen photographs, age 5, age 8, age 14, smiling and it strikes me, suddenly hits me- when I am forty five in a cold grey city, smog around me and 9-5 job, lost and lonely and without charm, this, THIS summer afternoon spent dazed and enamored, lazy, home alone as only a child can be, without obligation or worry, this is what I will think back to, and wish for…

. how very sad

20.

the postman has stopped delivering my letters.

and I don’t feel very well.

22.

hey lady dharma tramp suitcase backwards and skinny little grin we are not children lets run away now, away now, and celebrate our sins, coldhearted we continue to walk, the sidewalk runs out at the bay and we keep going, keep running, keep laughing and when we’re older, we’re older, we’ll start slowing but we’re right now we’re fast.

if- laugh attack with no one around to hear the sound

did you still laugh?

23.

I wake up early- too early- 6:35, an hour and a half of sleep, wake up and am energized, electrified, blue eyes and fingertips crackling, seeing colors I’ve never seen before. struggling up, pulling the blankets off, my underwear off- they’re too tight- I look for a piece of paper and pencil to write it all down, casting about- its still dark, find one, begin to write phrases, fragments. I’m too loud, too hurried, I wake him up, he looks at me in naked fervor and I kneel by him, trying to explain- the dream! the dream! I had the most incredible dream. no time. I can’t sleep. going for a run.

the sun is rising in quiet culver city off streets, and I’m wandering, the run has quietly and quickly turned to unabashed amazement, alone, no cars, no people, just miles and miles of city sprawl suburbia, but its adorable- truly lovely, all crammed into blocks full of big California sunshine rose blooms and lemon trees and bright painted housefronts, trash on the curb- its all so perfect- the first time I’ve walked in my own neighborhood and I finally see the appeal, see the sidewalk chalk drawings and stirring sleepy households- the sun in coming up and I watch the clouds blow away into a perfect los angeles blue sky, so flawless its worrying- me, used to high jet trails and texas thunderstorms and dust devils on the side of the highway.

the cars are starting around me, my neighbors going to work- corporate? where, I wonder? can there really be that many desk jockeys? they nod at me, not inclined for a good morning, but nods all the same and I smile back, enthralled. I must look a sight, sleep deprived, grinning, wild eyed, big black boots and a jewel toned dress- still caught up in colors and shades and dreams.

see a kind looking man (spectacled) with his oversized drooling mutt- smile in his direction and am about to shout out a goodmorning, sure he will respond and appreciate, when his dog takes a giant shit in the middle of the road. the man groans, gets down on his knees, and pulls out the obligatory plastic bag and I cut myself off, saving him the embarrassment. smile. laugh. dog shit- eternally funny.

I steal a dying potted plant out of the front yard of a house sporting a foreclosed sign.

god- no wonder! I see why! I see why they love it! walking down the alleys inbetween homes, dogs bark lazily at my passing and I blow kisses to their wet noses, find a golf ball in the dirt and slip it in my pocket, a piece of wood with flaking off paint- asking for art- some loquats from the backyard of a sleeping family- and my potted plant. treasures. I stop to admire a neighbor’s avocado tree, consider picking one, and she hastily opens the front door in her bathrobe and hair rollers.

“they’re not ready yet! It’ll be months!”

called out, I blush, compliment her tree- in actuality unripe mission figs, who would have known, and carry on. the dream floats back to me, and my head burns outward a little and everything- EVERYTHING!

standing in a field. wind whips around, but its quiet, calm compared with the frantic rest of the night. a little redheaded boy- freckles, twelve? hands me his notebook silently, just a long look, and I open it- drawings on every page, different places, the Buddha – sitting, standing, floating, a look of absolute serenity on his face- and in each one, he is burning, fire licking up his face and gone gone ashes. I hand the book back. and when he takes it everything- everything!-changes. I wake up and see colors I have never seen before.

it is fully day now- sky blue sky and I’m getting strange looks, wandering around suburbia all loaded down, so (against my heart) I head back to venice boulevard where the freaks are standard and cross culverts, canals, alleys, smiling. visit the library. buy a taco from a street vendor. a woman tells me good morning- thank god.

I’m so electrified, wake him up and he nods and smiles and humors me. we make coffee and its barely even nine (asleep at five?) but the day has begun and will continue to begin. I try to explain everything, and my eyes are so big, and he nods he nods – we’re beautiful enough.

24.

michael is a fire station

and I am khushcechev on a good day

we pick at coffee and donuts

cop fodder

enumerated, crumbs in teeth and whiskers, across the floor

what more, I couldn’t have known any better

blind, blinded trust

kings fall to pawns

on a good day

25.

I’m sweating but ignore it, wishing it wasn’t so hot, so humid, so mugged down burnt out heavy night air filled with buzzing mosquitoes and bog water and lightning bugs flashing up and down, up and down with a little electric hum, hushed next to old rusted light sockets flickering incandescent and yellow and drowning out the low crawling stars. I’m sweating but I keep running because the dark here is alive, it’s swamp, it’s heavy breathing that would take you in its arms and vanish you, suffocated, and I’m afraid to stop in the shadows. I’m sweating but its sweet – smells like magnolias and musk and pure human, if not pleasant at least real, at least salty and free and I’m RUNNING, really running now, between porchlight pools of safety I slow for and the dark pulsing southern swamp jungle night between them.

and I have bells on my ankles.

and the moss is cool on my feet and the dust stays down.

and I’m sweating.

26.

sitting on red bricks, watching boys play hackysack in the square, seagulls overhead and the cars zip by- small, trendy, hybrids, smartcars, earth conscious yuppies all. Portland. sitting on red bricks, surrounded by everything I own- clothes, art, ill-tuned guitar. sitting on red bricks and I’m in traveling clothes, shock blond bleached hair and smile – fresh off the train, finally away away away from dirty foggy cold san francisco and into fresh mountain air with fresh mountain people where the sunlight reaches everything and warms the red red bricks.

sitting on red bricks, waiting for a friend of a friend to meet me in the square with pink hair and a car (probably appropriately gas conscious) and promise of a couch to sleep on and a big black lab – these were the things I were told were waiting for me – but  was early by hours, so I sat, amused, watching- big geese by the shore, hipsters everywhere in their american apparel v necks, old clock tower hitting 2, 3, 4- but it really was a lovely town, now wasn’t it? so simple, quaint even after the crazy bustle of union square, of the ferry buildings, of chinatown and the piers.

I was hungry and had eaten the last of my traveling provisions, except for one solitary protein bar (minus an earlier bite), lifted from whole foods that was so very healthy and also so unspeakable vile that I didn’t even bother considering finishing it. I had money coming when the banks opened monday, but it was saturday and I had 7 dollars and 46 cents (counted) to my name but it was really quite alright- I was here, I was safe, I was warm, I was being met by a pink haired saint with an extra couch and a big dog- all was well.

a barefoot, shirtless boy comes wandering through the hackysack game, eyes horribly bloodshot, shaded by lime green kanye glasses. sees me. smile. shock. stares, sits down, draws closer.

“you,” he says, “ you. you are beautiful. you are real. you look at me, you actually look at me and you know.”

“thank you.”

“no… not one other person here looks at me, not in the eyes, not at my face- but you, you see me, really see me. you are beautiful. and you are feathers. and she-” he points at a toothless wrinkled woman crouched on a ledge by a fountain, “she looks at me. and she knows. she is beautiful, and she is feathers.”

‘thank you.’

“you’re an artist. I drew an egg here once. it was beautiful, and round, and robin.. robin colored. I drew it with my school. an egg. it was beautiful. it was feathers.”

“would you like to draw with me?” I take out my notebook,

“no! no. I don’t do that any more. here, here, have these.”

hands me his lime green kanye glasses. I can’t take them. don’t want them. hand them back. thank you.

a man he knows walks up – calls him brother – asks the man for five dollars, which he takes out of a billfold and hands over with a gogurt from a plastic walgreens bag. turns to me with the air of a first grade teacher- ‘hi I’m mark, who are you?’

‘katie. good to meet you.’

‘are you hungry Katie?’ I hesitate. I am, in fact, hungry, but also proud, also well fed, although I don’t look it all dirty from travel with my bags at my feet and a half crazy drug addicted previous artist prophet to my left.

‘I suppose I’m a little hungry.’

‘would you like some cottage cheese?’

I politely decline. nothing could sound more unappetizing, save the protein rock weighing down my backpack.

we talk for a while, the three of us- pleasantries, mostly, where we’re from, where we’ve been, plans for the future and wishes for the past- the couch waiting for me later- interjected by feathers and eggs and beauty. talk about art. music. traveling. Mark offers to buy a drawing I had started for 35 dollars, but I wasn’t finished- turned him down, couldn’t part with it incomplete. unwise, perhaps, but I was feeling high and happy and free and money was none of these things. he has to go, tries to give me his cottage cheese again, yogurt, a half gallon of milk, and a bottle of water all from his walgreens bag. I decline all- smiling, no, thank you, thank you, I’m fine.

“how about some money then? five bucks? fifty?”

“what? no, really, I’m fine.” I can’t take it. he thinks I’m something that I’m not. I can’t.

turns to kanye- “what do you think? five or fifty?”

“oh fifty, don’t you see, she is true feathers, she looks at me.” the man takes a fifty out of his billfold, holds it out.

“oh no no no. I can’t. I can’t.”

“no... really? well I’ll be here tomorrow if you change your mind about the drawing. or the money. I’ll see you around Katie.” he and the boy wander off together- the green glasses have disappeared somewhere. I watch them go and it is suddenly dark and chilly, and my ride shows up- pink hair as promised, red sporty car, not just a couch but a whole attic to myself and a spare key to the house and a big black lab after all.

I go back to the square the next day, every intention of giving him the drawing, finished now, but he isn’t there. not then or the day after or anywhere on portland streets for weeks. I leave the city, and wonder if he thinks I didn’t care.

27.

helicopters rattle window panes like earthquakes

I’m a fault line

waiting to shift.

28.

cold wingless night in Austin, frozen – cracked ice and glass and knocks on bloody pavement, lets forget and sleep again, stuff the newspaper between the window panes, everything is a-ok, my love; everything is a okay. lie with me? on this ocean made of stiff starched bedsheets, cold, flannel, and I whisper ‘I love you’ and the steam floats from my lips and fizzes out and you stir a little, and its cold, and I hold you to me- for warmth, for sunshine, for the summer. my eyes wide open, staring and lit, unable to sleep, electrified by the pale blue night and moon and crackling snow all fresh, snapped- hair standing on end, cold bare floors padding down concrete hallway to a kitchen- warmer and yellow and incandescent, coffee maker and oatmeal bubbling both, and the heat draws inward and I smile and sniff and wait for her to appear in the doorway, bathrobed, and she lets her long hair flow all over the round painted table as she waits for my cup of coffee that I will inevitably give her as she grins, pink lipsticked lips all chapped and beautiful.

and all I want is to keep her wrists from getting so very thin.

30.

wandering aimlessly along the shoreline, hot sand and cold ocean, staring, feels like she knows me- the sea- let the water touch my feet and close my eyes against the sun and the endless blue horizon- stare down at the pier, ferris wheel peeking through the haze, wish I was egoless enough to ride it. look down at my bare feet, brown, and I find a ladybug- stranded on seaweed, pick it up, fascinated- why a ladybug here? see another crushed into the sand in a footprint- bigger than mine, thank god.

carry back my lady bug triumphant when suddenly we notice- the ground is absolutely covered with them, crawling, escaping salt water waves to meet dry burning sand, confused, they stop – caught inbetween the two, stranded on the shoreline, on half dry sand with the high water litter of seashell fragments and trash and feathers. its an endless space for a ladybug to travel back to green land, impossible even, especially waterlogged and weighed down, and its hard not to realize- they are all going to die.

we bend down, let them crawl onto our fingers, the lucky brave ones (just a few. eight? ten? not even a dozen.) running across hot sand barefoot with lady bugs clinging, laughing- they tickle, its ridiculous, where on earth did they come from? I mean really? the shores of cold venice beach, lined by shops and cars and city life?

reaching grass we slow, walk across pavement past the first row of buildings to a big flower bush and pause, unload them (they seem reluctant, perhaps just wind shocked) from our fingers, hold green stems tight. a small obligated kindness and it seems… so very big.

33.

on the move again and its beautiful, driving wide eyed wonder up the five as we cast behind sunny serious los angeles and move. it starts to rain, not misty half fog tufts of rain like we are used to, but real, heavy warm drops, smell of smalltown dust beaten back in splashed circles, we pass through mountains on wide highway and listen to the radio fuzz, am dial stationary as we move – fsshst … oldies station… fsssshhzzzztsh… baseball games… fshzzut… bible belt preacher… the rain gets darker and softer until its not rain hardly at all but instead a wall of suspended droplets we plough through, 80, 90 miles an hour, and I realize that the rain hasn’t stopped- we have merely driven into the clouds.

later now, in the deep farming valley, yellow hay and fruitstands hawking wares in hand painted signs by the highway- jam, pie, lemons, next left, next left! one tractor fights its way antlike across endless barren expanse, a flame of dirt 30 feet high tracking its progress like a dust devil or a shadow. metal electric white giants stand guard on the horizon- windmills- don quixote was here. inexplicably we pass a canvas sign in a patch of dust and weeds- “food grows where water flows”- and suddenly orchards surround us, long lines of patterned trained trees, geometric complexities wavering in and out as we pass.

olive trees and there are workers- actual people- standing in the rows, gathering fruit with hands dark and dirty, ignoring the highway and its roaring- too familiar. occasionally a gap in the rows will mark where a tree once fell, and the empty space is lonely somehow.

another sign- “farm water feeds the nation”- and back to dusty plains littered with jackrabbits, plastic bags, and cop car speedtraps. how much brush can gather on low wire fences? driftwood without the flood, we race everything- grass and trees and people so slow they stand still, a dog running by the road, barking, for a second- birds passed against the sky, other cars- we catch up to long grain train and watch our reflection in the engine for a while, steam billowing away until we, wanting to make good time and getting bored with the game, outpace her.

windmills, the great white ones, mechanical valley silenced by the hum of spinning blades- and suddenly it hits us- we’re almost there – everyone awake, fresh faced, watching the names go by- Fremont, Berkeley, Oakland, and finally san francisco, the city of San Francisco rising below us, skyscraped humanity meeting us at the eye, shore lined, boat littered, windswept- cold bay water under the bridge in and out with the tides- this was it! and we descend into the mission and are gone.

35.

enchanted, we run with it, absolutely sure that our plan will work- nevermind the extremities my enemy cold calloused why do you cry like you do?  can’t shake the taste of a winters disgraced day, relayed- cushion my head and pretend to laugh because its only really funny if you’re laughing. destitute resolution spat on fallow ground, shallow sounds echo off frozen white hills circle all and crash down, avalanche. my killer, we’ve grown fond of each other in this chilly mountain air, fair maiden far away from it all. your hair is caught in branches and brambles, and it pulls you back- the woods retract – torn heavy cotton dress and a split lip, sailed ship, crossed streams aren’t enough to keep them off your scent, beautiful. lets camp out here underneath the stars and open sky, just one thin blanket between you and I, and I’ll lay awake all night to call you mine. earthquake toothache and back to the city streets, lamplight burning bright, moth fluttered suicide on cracked cement sidewalk, hop-scotched chalked. we’re endless and we know it, certain in our solitude. we’re friendless and don’t care, happy to delude ourselves, nude neighborhood walks at four in the morning, goosebumps- lets never brush our teeth again, mom would have a heart attack, become detached, xanax refracted perfect artifacts of a suburban life unrealized, cars scream by, red tail light streams on the strip, wet pavement screeching haunting refrains, feign disdain to drink pink lemonade on a hot summer day. fix me. my pick-me-up forget-me-not blue-eyed riptide, you follow the moon- and I can’t follow you. subway station trainwreck of a girl, unfurl your true refrain once I’m caught, fraught with doubt and understanding not the true consequence of anything. sing in the underground and it echoes, sing in the lost and found, smell of tobacco- mothballs in coat pockets long forgotten grocery lists and laundry loads unmissed, miss misery. what can I do for you today? nothing I can’t do tomorrow, your sorrow is fake, no tragedy befell you, dramatic past impromptu, liar. what more, I don’t know which way up is towards, warden creeps through eerie alleys, dogcatcher- cold-footed heretic, empty electric telephone pole buzz, emulate where once was cicadas, the weeping willows are gone now replaced by weeping widows, drive thru windows- we order strawberry milkshakes and french fries, and eat pushing 95 for no reason at all. red sirens fall behind as we straighten out on desert highway, the right way nowhere with bright star sky don’t deny it, one kiss? resist and - fuck this- I never said I didn’t love you.

36.

I always knew you weren’t ordinary and you play that accordion accordingly, recording me on an old tape deck meant for better things.

accidental exhibitionists twisted lips exist

appropriately blissed, nowhere

37.

coffeeshop goddess of stone cold quiet, vacuum eyes. run me your ribcage and overdrawn credit card, you’re a saint sans regret, last cigarette gone out between strained lips, stained glass tattooed hands touch in grateful prayer, a solemn air settles as fingers meddle in bright dyed yarn- Jacobs ladder, cats cradle- slide a note across the table, which you disregard, holy. cigarette relit and messy hair unfixed – gospel music from the car at the stop and we laugh,  hassled by cops for no reason at all and move along, move along, twelve o clock and all is well, circumvent your personal hell because we have hell to pay for our greatness.

39.

back in austin- home yes but its bitter, tastes and smells tainted by the fact that I felt no urge to come back and yet came anyway, leaving a lover, leaving easy sunny los angeles where the art, the music, is so free. I visit the willful soulful places of my home and try to make myself glad- cup of coffee, conversations, old friends- get a taco from a trailer on south first street – zilker park, barton springs,  and although I am shocked by the unfamiliar greenery and beauty and natural wonder still inside a city, my soul is not appeased. I come away with mosquito bites.

there is a weakness in my knees and a tremor to my hands that I can’t explain, I blame it on hunger and caffeine, on those hash cookies i’m sill a little stoned from, lack of sleep, sudden heat, my fresh starched sheets on a bed i’d forgotten. it is almost as f I had never gone- I’m lucid, it reminds me of a day I’d spent unmoving on a sunfilled park hill, convinced, compelled to wait for some great event about to unfold, it would change my life, I could feel it!

nothing happened, and I went to sleep as if I had cheated a destiny. do you ever get the feeling that in some alternate reality, the alternate you has suddenly died?

the air is humid and heavy, filled with human laughs- a man at the gas station asks for a cigarette. I drive half an hour south to help a friend clean- some sort of perverse want to suffer – and my fingers get bleach in all those little cuts I didn’t know I had.

miserable, half asleep, dreaming of sidewalks and seeing endless cedar trees I listen to the radio programming unchanged on the highway home – the darkness gathers early, and surprised I stare at the horizon where storm clouds threaten dark and brooding, lightning flashes like reflections off silver plates, and heavy warm rain falling distant. Rain. its going to rain.

enthralled, my windows down, wind lashing sideways as thunder jumps overhead- I pull off the road and sit on top of my car, watch it roll in rumble by circle the entire horizon and drown me. rain. I haven’t seen rain in all the time I was gone, and never like this- beautiful grassland rolling storms with more ferocity and purpose than I will ever have. and in that second, I forget entirely the life I thought I would miss.

40.

drifting weeds

across an endless expanse of quiet,

shallow sea, dusty haze

and i’m amazed at the extravagance of it all

totall recall of dreams is not impossible,

just hard to drag like an unstoppable giant ten feet tall

one half-interested-waitress

and a red dress,

strapless suggestibility in the fabric folds

unsung heroes hide in the woodwork, termite holed

stories untold

but waiting

baiting breaths held as we drive across bridges

twitches in our fingers trace out eager patterns on car windows

and wouldn’t you know it

we’re going in the wrong direction

41.

these days our shoulder blades itch

and we strain them upwards

    like corn shoots

    like steam out of kettles

soon the skin will rip and little wings

    made of bone fragments

    made of fingernails

lend us new life

and our cities will now be in the clouds

42.

is it true they killed you?

and drained your soul out in three puncture wounds

two below your eyes and one at the bridge of your nose?

(freckled)

they didn’t bleed

and I wouldn’t have thought of that

is it true you can’t feel your right or left pinky finger anymore?

it’s a shame,

but they were never very useful anyways

is it true what they say about little annie fremont, the girl who sat behind us in biology class and didn’t say a word?

I remember the day we found a baby bird

in the creek behind your house

and tried to feed it on lowfat milk and skippy pnut butter

I remember that one time

you asked me to stay the night

    softly, madly

    like it hurt you to admit

and I went home anyway and watched bad porn

    and late night public access

you told me once-

    beestings are a stupid way to get high

    like glue and snuff and drano

but when the going gets tough…

44.

unrequited love dresses in denim overalls and wire frame glasses- smells like a heart attack in a short, whole milk cappuccino- makes the little blond hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. she writes notes on the backs of her fingers in blue ink, around brass rings, rolls sweet bali shag cigarettes and eats cinnamon buns for breakfast lunch and dinner (never suffering the consequences). unrequited love drives an old italian motorcycle and lives in a secret treehouse by a stream- drinks red wine and whisky on the weekends. she has a face naked gold except red lipstick, goes shoeless all summer ignoring hot pavement- and her feet are as tan as the rest of her. she exists in a cloud of curled madness and the whole world wants nothing but to kiss the place in between her shoulder blades.

typical

I would touch your cheek and stain it pink- with the virulence of a moth, of a ghost, of a cobweb. our wings are almost imaginary.

its silly

paradise, my dear, is the freckles on your lips and steam from the subway vents you avoid (vertigo) on the sidewalk. it is as soft as the ashes left behind from burned love letters. I wish I didn’t use such expensive paper. inkstains on this floor mark every time I let the pen fall from my fingers and blots soak into old hardwoods, laughing.

I wish this apartment wasn’t a rental.

45.

your grandmother’s wedding ring rests rusted on a white tiled sink, golden drips from faucets never fixed– it spreads green copper stains ruthlessly in the soap dish and fills the bathroom (really that whole dark little hall and out the window and into the ivy) with the smells of a merry-go-round game on a fairground half a century ago. the angel cake clouds that were once, like michaelangelo, painted on the ceiling have been darkened by waterstains and mold. they now look like an impartial texas storm, moody, grey, dark, and like their master’s cloudy grey eyes (no longer seeing much of anything) the beauty has actually grown with old age.

after she died they sold and demolished that bathroom (and the little hall, and they pulled up the ivy- its invasive, and had grown through a crack in the windowglass). I’m not sure if anyone thought to take the ring. you and I, we were not allowed to breathe that fairground air full of mold and dust and sunlight and laughs of lovers long dead. in those last years of visiting her, she met us on the porch, wheelchaired- or we wore white hospital masks over our noses.

they were, admittedly, interesting kisses but I doubt she ever noticed.

her mind lay rusting in a soapdish under the eternal rain clouds of the bathroom.

I like to think that the english ivy (it does grow fast) pushing through the windowpane reached her in time, picked her up, pulled her out, and buried her while the roof fell overhead.

I like to think that every flower that grows in that garden will smell inexplicably, faintly, like a merry-go-round.

46.

fill my bed with sawdust and sunshine

and my bones with

kerosene

47.

a blessing

we are here today, in a city in which love stories seep from the cobblestones, to recognize and celebrate 25 years of true commitment

and love to each other

and also to renew that love and refresh those bonds between you

may you continue to walk beside each other in this life

despite hardship, despite sickness, despite mistakes, despite danger

may these obstacles never drive a wedge in your love

but instead let it be strengthened as you face the world together and lend each other bravery

may you live in true happiness and health until the end

but know, that when the white wings of death depart

that your dedication and love for each other will live on in your minds

and the minds of all who knew you

may you know that each of you is beautiful

but the other is more beautiful than yourself

may you continue to share your lives, home, and work

but do it lightly,

and remember that the joy of dancing comes yes from the partner

but also from the breeze that fills the space between you

lights your skin

and plays around your feet

may you clasp hands in mad adoration

but know, that when you walk the world forced far apart

that although no tree can grow in the other’s shadow

their roots drink from the same water and form a web, intertwined

that is more complex

and more beautiful

than every line of every constellation in the sky

know that these roots are buried

and while the trees exist to provide and protect and be seen

this web is your secret

guard it, spread it, and it will flourish

and may you reach new wells that these roots have not yet drunk from

do you take this woman to be your best friend, advisor in all things, co-conspirator in all dastardly plans, and as your wife?

and do you take this man to be your closest companion, your co-pilot in all adventures, your giant, and as your husband?

Then you are married.

48.

its overcast with a threat of lightning, lightly grey but dangerous- preemptive, we light tall mexican candles with the outlines of saints and the virgin clinging to glass on cheap waxed paper, and sit on the kitchen tile, lights all off, and cross our fingers for rain.

when it does rain we go outside to lay on the sidewalk skirting our house, cars skating by like waterbugs, stoplights reflected in the wet pavement, mirages. we lie, soaking it all up into our skin until eventually, waterlogged as driftwood, we give up and go inside. for a second there our ghosts remain in raindrops- the rest of the world oversaturated and our shadows dry grey cement.

its as if we died and were outlined in chalk.

51. (green)

weeds grow in the sidewalk cracks green and sick, among bubblegum wads and broken bottles. lovely, when we were kids my father would send us out to pull them up- violently- but they grew faster than we did

or could

possibly keep up

I want to be to you exactly

that ghost of the peacock that flies, for the very first  time, on its master’s command. cast off a gloved hand, probably falling but for a second free and beautiful.

we were once blue and round and full, but now we are green; see-through not unlike an old blown wine glass but more the thinnest blade of grass or maybe that spit bubble from your lips as you shout philosophy from your tomb-rock-soap-box and

your freckles get darker when you try to tan

I was always really more olive skinned, positively green if you were matching to paint swatches, I think you once told me you’d paint the walls my color if you could

I was flattered

and disturbed

53.

no. 37 down – 4 letter word for ‘destitute’

that first morning we met over newspapers and bus fare discrepancies, you told me that your accent came from the forest and I believed you. like you were raised by bears- or no- that’s wrong- maybe birds, or wolves. singing wolves. it wasn’t guttural, not like german, american, no it was positively lilting. wolves.

I later learned that you were french.

parisian, even, although that designation hardly seemed possible and for months when I wondered about your past it only involved, in my thoughts, caves and pine trees and raw meat and cold cold water. maybe snow. maybe 8 months of hibernation.

it wasn’t that you weren’t civil- you were overly so- in brown boots and a wool blazer and those glasses that held so precariously onto your nose as you regarded the morning paper, every morning, and the evening paper on sundays. I’d never met anyone else who buys the evening paper. and you’d smoke your cigarettes only half-way and flick them into the street still burning, and you’d take your coffee with just a touch- a touch- of cream and sugar but really who doesn’t take cream and sugar? and you filled in the crossword squares with lettered, numbered poetry.

no. 121 across- nine letters- a member of the carnation family

the best of them would even match the clues. although some were a stretch. and some were misspelled. but you sniffed- grammar doesn’t matter in poetry, spelling shouldn’t either.

no, you were civil. just not civilized.

some strange wild spirit entered your mouth when you were probably 6 or 7 years old, I guessed, took up residence- and it forced your eyes far apart and flashing and your hair to grow in dark and shaggy and your arms long and thin and sure in their movements. sometimes I saw it leak out of you a little, drip from your fingers or between your front teeth and onto the floor. usually when you were angry.

I’m afraid it will someday all run out of you, and, suddenly uncoordinated, you will collapse.

no. 7 across – five letter word for redness

I think that maybe you were the child of a prince or the second-cousin of the queen or a minor baron even but someone. I think maybe you grew up wild in the jardin de luxemburg and the trees, even in straight palace lines, talked to you. I think maybe you used to sneak into the bee hives and steal their honey, warm from the sun and full of wax, maybe you set tiger traps in the flower beds catching usually gardeners- maybe you  had a rare pedigreed puppy that looked at the world with sad eyes and didn’t complain when you pointed your wooden pistol at him- bang! bang!

that is the only way I can imagine you young, in paris. sidewalk parks and apartment buildings could never hold you.

I can’t even imagine you having a mother.

no. 79 down – ten letters- famous train station

the first time we made love I spent the next 4 days violently ill, shivering, fighting a fever that brought no sleep and no pity. I think whatever that thing is inside of you, it made me sick.

when we were in my bed- naked, not touching, the ceiling low- I breathe heavily through my mouth and you your nostrils, as if smelling, really smelling everything- the purple curtains move in and out and I wonder about the neighbors and what they think- I can see a woman pulling weeds in her window garden a complex over- there are no clouds- and your fingers brush my white thighs as if to ask ‘are you that child?’

I hear your voice in my head, like milk and terracotta clay and grassfires.

I hear your voice in my head.

54.

the tail end of a wanton wasted summer and, as the air cools, threatening grown up madness so foreign it seems almost divine.

it reminds me of that feeling we’d get as we walked drunk all night along the streets of paris on trash days, looking in every box for treasure, treasure. perfectly alone, sometimes singing, sky from shallow cloudy dark to blue electric to pink with seagulls weaving- lazy, low- over us.

like the mafia movie we saw

or the day I left you asleep in bed and took the subway as far as it would go and then walked – tired, sleep deprived, hungry – for 3 hours further into what was maybe once a town or two but now just paris suburbia filled with automotive shops and cemeteries and canals- walked until I could really, for once, see the sky.

like the little girl staring backwards in sudden rain, as her dad carries her, shielding her head like sugar, like she might melt. our eyes meet for too long and I wonder if she will remember me in 15 years like I will her.

and the fat bees we don’t bother to brush off our boots, asleep on the keep-off-the-grass of the jardin du luxemburg

until the gendarmes blow us away with whistles and bells

whistles and bells

or that time we spent all night in the airport taking pictures of ourselves dancing in the empty tiled vaulted terminals, on long exposure, so we looked like ghosts or trails but you could see where our feet fell. how the sleeping people grunted on jackets as I sang softly on the way to the restrooms. how the lights- the giant burning incandescent lights! glow worms lit the narrow subway bridge over nothing and how we pushed our bags over the tracks to terminal 2A, clickity clack, because it was so early or so late and we were so alone and we were in the wrong gate after all.

like the roses they refrigerate at the baggage claim

and, when I was a child, how badly I wanted those few flowers waiting for me in the too-big hands of my papa

going home, wishing it was night so I could see the northern lights – level with us– out the starboard window.

it is 4 pm (debatably)

and I am drunk off red wine in a plastic bottle free with airline lunch

and surrounded by strangers

and someday

I will do this in an ocean liner

and someday

there will be roses.

57.

like that last sweet breath in before the city stink hits you I wanted a kiss for good luck before gone gone gone. its long, so my skirt makes patterns on the sand, sidewinder in a masquerading zen garden. for the beauty of it all I drop the pebbles from my pockets in clever, clever patterns and the drop is silent, no crunch. it is as silent as (because of) that place on the beach between the waves and the highway, where the dull roar of both cancels the other and turns to nothing. exhalation here is blasphemy- only the screams of seagulls could be considered sacred. when I was a child I would eat the third and fourth petals off clover for good luck and was shocked much later to find them poisonous, although only mildly with no sharp bite. my lady, my lady, I know your face from somewhere before, dreaming, or in oil paint finished 300 years ago and not yet dry. you so sweet and me so dull, I try to explain, and the splinters catch in my fingers, pulling both directions. won’t you tell me again why exactly we must try this? all I want is to walk with you and see what is and isn’t. at night when the generator fails and the power goes out and the streets are full of colored paper lanterns at every shop door, it is easy to pretend like we live in only in history, in memory, in far distance so beautiful it may have never been real. you wonder, you tell me, if ghosts see all the layers of the past or if they can really see at all. spindle legs, I reply, they always have spindle legs.  and there is a little hole in the ceiling where our souls crawl out at night to live with the spiders, spinning. it is a simple instance of weakness where cold water meets hot breath and steam rises off our skin in sheets, a blanket of snow in sudden reverse returning to the sky. could I call you mine or should you, in introduction, be only my friend? dark haired like a priestess or those flowers with the wispy stems of fraud dreamers waving victory, no white flags of surrender. its kind of like that one movie, with the cowboy and his old horse- and how he shot the horse between the eyes because he had a bum leg and couldn’t ride no more. sometimes I am that horse in the second of surrender before the bullet hits, too fast for surprise or shock or betrayal or hatred. just finding myself, suddenly, hazily, looking my master in the eyes before being blown straight away to endless white nothing.

60.

dust settles everywhere in your house- old photograph frames, dried flower potpourri, windowpanes and handkerchiefs laid out to dry then forgotten- it gathers in your new wrinkles and seeps through the pores of your skin into your mind filled with pleasant sunny golden haze of summer country small town dust- even when we sell your old house and you move into that dark city and never venture outside again, the dust seeps out of your still packed boxes and out of your fine china and out of your pink gums through your smile and clumps at the corners of your brown eyes- and we know how you aren’t really seeing us for the haze.

61.

in the halls of the dead

we rotate our heads

revelry

revelry

cold to my bed

in the halls of the dead

the labyrinth maker

cuts lines into paper

to paper

to shape her

daedalus is ill

my beasts are loose

64.

ragtime, jailbait, ashes in the coffee kind of night

with- jesus- is that a brand new transistor?

turn up that radio, darling, dance the night away in rags and riches unfit for kings

a little more, sweetheart, kill the flood lights and we can drown out those stupid mosquito hawks buzzing in all the corners

useful as can be but fucking annoying

hey love

that little daughter of yours around tonight, madam melinda brown? she wears a face so severe divine as if the pinched lips masked her youth

and made us less of sinners

for wanting her

or at least wanting her tiny fawn face to peek at us curious from the corners

its one of those nights, I can smell it from here that the ac is headed on out

dripping on the floor

and you might have to crack a window or some shit to really get the smell out

one of those nights

your body heat spills all over my left side and I’m up solid against the booth back eating a grilled cheese sandwich, pretending not to notice the pit stains and tapping fingers and

mine buzz towards you

and fuck man

22 years old and my clothes already don’t fit right

its practically disgraceful

and you smile at me, knowing, with red lipstick stuck to your front teeth

leering practically. I see where this is going

jesus

one of those nights

65.

when I was young I never understood that why, when you jumped, and hung suspended and immaculate, the world did not rotate under you.

66.

I do mean maybe

I do mean, maybe, that when it rains I want to be old and sitting on my front porch noting mutely the way smoke fights its way up against the drops?

and I do mean maybe, how even the pavement smells alive and when we sit upstairs with all the lights out I pretend the sea is rising around us and we begin to rock slowly on the waves

the mud on the boots in the hallway makes the air there warm and dark and safe

I do mean

maybe like the day that it was raining and the train derailed a little at her front on maybe a twisted bit of wet metal and as

she passed into town and shuttered loud halt and her whole long body was stuck out on the spindly bridge over the lake for the afternoon her men worked and waited and stared stone faced into the downpour and it was strange- so many tons of steel immovable over long green water and

the air beating down in sheets because

there is nothing I’d rather do than sit

and wait until the horizon storm clouds suffocate the sun like that one day we sat on the rocks and counted lightening strikes as it rolled sighing towards us and the air was think and static and hard to breathe in and how,

when it finally swallowed us up, we ran laughing screaming down the grass to the car and you dropped the keys and just flopped wet against it, breathless, electric,

and I dodged raindrops in the headlights

and maybe it is not quite possible but when I was young I would spin through storm arms out wide and get under the porch, I would swear, drier

67.

I’ve been having these recurring dreams about finding stained glass windows in alleyways. they’re beautiful, stately things- I’ve always liked stainedglass. but all I want to do any more is drive down alley after alley, looking for windows. every time I am in my car- window searching. there is that one alley down by the old haunted house where we stare and sometimes there is a big blue door lit somehow arbitrarily, with the grace of a god, and sometimes there isn’t- and sometimes the black spindlylegged ghosts with the big mouths and glowing eyes poke their way around the trashheaps. we have to take out the trash in the morning because of that alley and I remember when the door didn’t make me shiver. months ago, when we first moved in and thought the empty white slanted ceiling was beautiful. blinding light fights its way up through the floorboards and ivy crawls into the walls- cracks- everywhere. it’s a thin place. the wind comes through, blows our breath away when we sleep. generally these days I can’t tell if I’m dreaming unless I find stained glass. then I know it can’t be real. the day I really do find some I might not ever come back.

68.

an opening in the solid façade of the rue du tours caused the self-made man to puzzle. ‘why what a strange little door this is!’ he exclaimed, surveying the lovely red brick door frame. ‘why this is just my size! it is little like me! perhaps I should peek my head inside?’ the self-made man stepped through the small door, making sure to wipe his feet on the doorjamb.

inside was a well-lit little lobby, with comfortable-looking chairs and mahogany trimmings. there was an attendant at the end of the room in a maroon vest. he was typing and his head was turned to the side as to not brush the ceiling. he did not look up  while the self-made  man approached, although the footsteps were ringing clearly on the marble floor.

the self-made man watched him work. he had an odd way of typing, using only two the first two fingers on each hand for the letters, ring fingers for the numbers, thumbs for spaces, and pinkies for the punctuation. ‘why don’t you just get a shorter chair?’ the self-made man asked, noticing the painful angle of his neck.

the attendant stopped typing abruptly. ‘a shorter chair? why that is simply absurd. it is me who is too tall. I slouched during my interview.’ he paused to ring a bell in the corner of his desk, then more cheerfully, ‘when was your appointment?’

the self-made man was taken aback. ‘oh! I didn’t know I needed an appointment!’ he said. the attendant made a small sound in the back of his throat.

‘well. of course you need an appointment. he is a very busy man. you can’t just walk in here and expect him to make time for you, any hour of the day, now can you?’

the self made man was confused. why, he didn’t know that he was to meet with anyone at all! still, he was here already and so he asked ‘who is this important man?’

‘who is this man? who is this man!’ the attendant exclaimed. ‘simply because you forgot to schedule your appointment. who is this man? hah! I could ask you the very same thing. you, after all, have come to meet with him.’

‘well that’s just it,’ the self-made man explained cautiously. ‘I haven’t really come to see anyone. I was simply walking along the rue du tours, generally solid concrete, and then today there was a small door about my size and I thought I’d come inside. I’m not even dressed for a meeting!’ and he pointed down at his very casual slacks and dirty shoes.

the attendant barked out a laugh. ‘but of course you are to meet with him. why ever else would you be here? anyway you’re in luck about the appointment. we’ve been waiting for a certain ‘self-made man’ for hours and he is likely not going to make it. you can take his spot. go ahead and go in now.’

the attendant pointed to a handsome wooden door off the lobby. it too was very little and had a brass nameplate with the initials ‘T. M. W. C. D. E.’ inscribed in it. under the initials, in parenthesis, was ‘PHD.’ the self-made man turned the handle and entered.

he was met with another well-lit room, but this one was completely devoid of any furnishings except for a fern in the corner and a rolling chair upon which a man sat perched. he cut a strange figure- he was sharply dressed, with a grey suit, white gloves, and a smart, even face. however, his body seemed to be made from a variety of persons, as his torso was thick, wide, and short but his legs were very long and spindly. his head did not reach the ceiling sitting, but standing he surely must be bent twice in half. he carried a cane with which he pushed his rolling chair in the self-made man’s direction.

‘hello!’ he said. ‘the self-made man, I presume? I almost thought you weren’t going to make it. now what can I do for you? my attendant said you sounded most agitated on the phone.’

‘well…’ the self-made man began guardedly. ‘that depends entirely upon what it is, exactly, that you do.’

‘what do I do? why I thought it was fairly obvious in my title. I’m the man who could destroy everything.’

the man who could destroy everything! the self-made man whistled slightly. this was a very important man. and he hadn’t the faintest notion to why he was here. he had been expected, that much was clear, but for what reason he could not discern.

the man who could destroy everything seemed not to notice his silence and carried on. ‘I do weddings, funerals, office documents, birthday parties, old buildings, politics, ex-husbands, in-laws, electronic equipment, you name it. or perhaps you’re thinking more morosely than all that? I can destroy your future with the highest of class. I’m flexible. and my rates are the best in the business! now what was it that you needed destroyed?’

the self-made man thought and thought. he thought of all of his business competitors and all the girls who had ever laughed at him. he thought of his neighbor who let his two pugs bark on the balcony all night long. he thought of the schoolyard bullies who once had made him eat sand. he thought of the mayor he didn’t like and the birds that shat upon his car every morning. he thought of war and disease and his speeding ticket sitting still unpaid on his counter at home. he thought of his own future, and giving up on it all. he thought of the wife he had taken who sat on the couch, and he thought of the tv she was watching which had cost him almost 100 dollars. he thought of the cold winter that was nearly here and even of the vice president of the company whose place the self-made man would surely inherit.

and yet when he imagined the world without all of these things it did not seem any friendlier or nicer or warmer, just a bit more empty. and there was quite enough empty space already. the self-made man did not like space; the empty little room was making him anxious.

‘thank you,’ the self-made man began, ‘but I must have been mistaken. there is nothing that I would like to have destroyed. not a politician, in-law, or office document. now please do have a nice evening. I must be going.’

the man who could destroy everything nodded his head and reached out his hand for a handshake. the self-made man automatically took it. he had a firm grip. he noticed that the man who could destroy everything had removed his white gloves.

there was an immense silence.

one should never shake hands with the man who could destroy everything.

69.

elizabeth leaned close in with a pinched face, as if to tell a secret- but just exhaled her breath in carefully constructed puffs, taut sighs. did she think those made her look more grown up? already across her cheeks the freckles were turning to wrinkles, her skin feeling like a hundred dollar bill, but maybe one that went through the wash, maybe one too many times. her best friend is the grocery store clerk down at Maple & Mary’s, who would be so beautiful if she didn’t smile like that, and if her right eye wasn’t one and a quarter times larger than the left. they giggle together in the stockroom and count spilled grains of rice, the white dust rising up in splinters of sunshine. those same splinters let the rats in at night, with the moonlight, and after Mary’s fat ginger cat died 2 months ago they’ve been too bold. the exterminator is a grey thin humorless man, with a tick above his lips that makes him stutter sharply, and so no-one wants to hire him. but with every morning shift there are less and less grains to count, so something really must be done.

70.

I wanted a treehouse, but there was only the big silver fever tree in the backyard that warmed up our backs, almost burning, careful not to scrape our knees on the rough bark when we climbed up because it would get in and dig deep, mother always turned from that tree on the front porch, looking away, looking away, at the red convertible our daddy had driven and now sat abandoned halfway into the garage, or at the lot two to the right all grown over with weeds and fruiting, now, a healthy crop of cigarette butts, free mailer cds, pregnancy tests with unfortunate answers; the refuse of a highway culture not too far off. that’s why the neighborhood was cheap- the highway not too far off. you could see it from the fever tree, my brother and I would spend hours coating the branches in sweet tacky glue and dental floss (our aunt was a dentist’s assistant across town and gave it freely at every holiday) hoping to catch birds but birds never lit and we usually got the torn wings of butterflies, moths. being boys we ripped them off and laughed, painting our faces with the fine dust that rose up and threw them away when they were transparent and we blue, grey, orange like monarchs. you could find the twitching wingless bodies on the ground around the tree, and we made god with magnifying glasses or the garden hose or let the fat blind dashund out of the house, still laughing, hoping to make mother turn her head back at our games, expecting innocence. I cried guilt into my pillowcase at night, and my brother cried all day, just a little, not really in bursts but a constant sniveling stream that mother mistook for an omnipresent sinus infection, and coupled with the fever tree he missed school a lot. we  used to drive a lot. I would, when greeted with the images of writhing black worms trying to fly, covering the ground, see myself in dad’s convertible with the top down and him in the front, in leather, and then he’d look back at me in the rearview, toss the cigarette still lit onto the highway, and take me for a drivethrough milkshake, chocolate, of course. I can see it still- so clear, so divine a memory, revisited embossed until the actual event was gone and only the ideal remained, the embodiment of daddy driving, driving the black butterflies and fever away. It was a lullaby. my daddy left when my little brother was born- I was almost 2. I think I took his handsome face from a parliament commercial. the night I found this out, from mother, finally laughing, I broke a club from the fever tree and slept in the back seat of the convertible and found a stale pack of parliaments under the pleather and smoked easily 6 or 7 of them, till I was sick and dirty and hot, and there was a storm, electric wind, and somehow the floss-thin chain broke on the garage door and it came down crunching on the front hood of the car. screeching, death rattle with sour smoke on my lips. maybe it was my fault. I held the round branch from the fever tree and whistled softly under my breath and there was no rain. The door was locked- mother was not on the front porch. I curled up in the fever tree and woke up with black lung and 2nd degree burns.  and, in front of my left foot, beating madly against the strain of her stuck feathers, was a hummingbird. my club came down on her in a fever. flossing taut as she hung. and I caught no more butterflies.

71.

the imprint of hips on my mattress, depressed downward,

are the hollow shapes of weekend wishes.

the fabric makes a million small, silver sounds.

your lips paint an electric pattern on my neck

and I am good at enjoying the way that your body feels under

my hands

the air textured with a century of motion

of meetings and partings

crisscrossed wired entrails hanging from the open windows

we don’t have power any more

here, darkness crosses a narrow bridge

he pokes around underneath the shrubs and trees and grasses, for a while

and then he overtakes

their leaves

but he goes

soon after

72.

it is morning, and we are wearing high heels

they click as we pick our way dainty

around the white fish left wriggling on the sidewalk

pulled out of the water for sport

and left, too small, to suffocate

sick sanddrifts gum wrappers eddying,

bent cypress tree fruit of gym shoes and chewed gum

skimmers and birch canoes carved in the shape of bus stop benches

complete with salvation army sheet sail

and piss bottles

it has been raining.

the gutter rainbows, oil-swirl puddles shiny like a starlings belly

remind me of the cocaine fueled makeouts

at that one dyke bar

we’re alone out here. I cough to break the hum

and the cherry-red click click click

of these stupid fucking shoes

73.

denny and me, we visit walgreens. he wanted to buy eyedrops. the ones he picked were in a red and blue package. denny didn’t have blue eyes, but I didn’t know what color they were. I didn’t check. it was dark outside- musta been late- I dunno – we were pretty stoned. denny buys his eyedrops. he counts out exact change. 2 dollars and 68 cents. 8 pennies. the only other person in walgreens is in line behind us. he taps his foot. denny counts slow, and I’m eyeing the magazine covers. someone thin and elegant smokes a cigarette in black and white. that’s pretty neat, the way they do that with the colors. take them away like that, I mean. denny is done counting and has a big plastic back now and the eyedrops barely weigh down the bottom. just outside of the sliding doors, denny pinches his eyelids and tries to get the drops in. he can’t do it. he keeps missing. like I said, we were pretty stoned. anyway, his face is all wet and saline and it’s a funny color I guess from the parking-lot lamps, in the dark, and the night air is heavy and it makes me kind of sad. so I tell him let me try. he pulls his eyelids back and looks upward and I squeeze the bottle between my thumb and pointer finger. its like feeding a baby bird. that works just fine, and denny’s eyes are good and flooded now. he is blinking, and I read the package. VISINE, it says, in blue. Gets The Red Out. Just like Artificial Tears. I look at denny. he is crying. his eyes are red. the 24 in the walgreens sign is flickering, and that is what is turning his face the funny color. its probably got my face too. a tear hits the sidewalk. it stays dark for a moment, then sizzles away to the neon. I dunno. they look pretty real to me. but, like I said, we were pretty stoned.

74.

dove grey city streets litter of colored paper, trodden sweets, banners torn in the dawn. it’s the blue morning after, and they all kept walking so we’re alone now, you me and the festival carnage, the lost and the found clipped paving stones cursing pursed lips ghost touch. feathers. plaster paint confetti cemented scraps. already dark and dirtied well fed fat and milk cats felicitous whisker ratkillers. this poison is pink, and tastes like medicine-cherry candy. shipwrecked fingerpuppets disentangled, redhand culprit prophet screamer. it’s the blue morning after.

75.

It has been raining. the devil rose up out of a grey puddle, and didn’t look very scary. he then asked me for my number. I was nervous and gave him my parent’s home phone, the first one I had ever learned. I couldn’t remember the zipcode, which made the whole thing a bit of a risky endeavor. the last time we sat together you whispered scandalized about historical figures. ‘he is famous for killing somebody. do you know who?’

‘what a lousy reason to be famous,’ I contended, while the sky fell. then the bus came. at least 4 minutes late.

76.

we lived by the ocean, a proper seaside town, so it was inevitable that the itch was there. old mr parsons got it every winter, usually january, as the fish boats were brought in and flipped upside down and the barnacles scraped clean off, holes patched with tar. jake jaffey, the grocers assistant who lived on the street that divided the upper and working classes cleanly (even walk to the ones he drinks with and those he serves), gets it, quite often, when the trains stop dropping new people and goods. my mother generally picked up the itch when my father was gone on business and she would see all her old girl-friends and they'd reminisce and smoke looking blankly at the sea. miss janie, one of mom's more eccentric friends who had never married, swore the itch jumped in when she was weeding carrots one morning. some had known the itch their whole lives and some, 76 years old and tired, would wake up and suddenly have it. the first time I got the itch I was 13 and wandering, shoes in hand, by the ocean. a squid, very small, had washed up and I stepped straight on it, tendrils wrapping my olive skin toes.

the itch went right in.

77.

its december and the post-lady wears tights when I sign for the long packages from medi-op canada. she is the only person i've had over in a long time, and I know she peeks into the damp gloom of indoors with a sort of morbid fascination while I look down to press my name into the electronic pad. she is older than me, and carries the air of a self-righteous seal, but I kind of like her. twice a week I make it down to the corner store for cans of dog food, eggs, diet coke. I used to buy whole cartons of menthol camels, but they make me too jittery. 'hi mr. brown,' the indian cashier smiles. 'case of camels?' shake my head and swipe the card. my neighbors liked me better as a smoker. the mint-nicotine film settled over everything, and quieted the dogs. I'm pretty sure they turned off the water last week. guess that makes dogs and drugs the only bills I still pay for.

78.

we live on the 14th floor of a theatre

windows left open make glass houses

rent tickets

to the midnight show

our living room couchseat is bad

cheap

but still, the feeling is there

muffled sound effects, music cues

shake our stuffed chairs

there are shadow puppets in the drapery

and we clap

delighted at the soft short vignettes

kisses and thuds and bed creaks

screaming dramaturgy

soap operas

for our bubblebath entertainment

of course, in the morning we ignore our favorite actors

feign indifference

play cool our celebrity crush

no paparratzi here

its not easy, this game

especially when the remnants of last nights stage makeup still cling

smeared rough by the morning sun

or hidden behind dark glasses

I like to sit in the dining room, surrounded by crawling crystal

our finest specimens

displayed behind glass

taxidermied terracotta

and panted porcelin smiles

I feel it rattle

quiver

and I falsely cry 'earthquake!'

while the wolves circle

a floor beneath

growling

79.

'it was not an act of clemency,' she sighed against the sun. 'it was forgetfulness.'

80.

its within you without me, a girl who misinterpreted the Xerox machine, who copied her eyes and made herself blind, who copied her ears and made herself deaf, who copied her lips and made herself mute, who copied her own long palms and how they never again touch my long palms, which are tattooed blue, in thin little lines. I tattooed over my lifeline. it stretches further now, but I’m not sure if it works that way. mothspeak. catspeak. wingbeats. touch these, new born seeds of hated or love or maybe a bloody lip, from the hand of a lady who looked too long-nosed and thought you were someone you weren’t. she speaks of sad lads and milkcan telephones. oh no oh my an eye for an eye and a blinded animal who falls over herself in the beartraps. I mean, why do they still set beartraps? the bears are long gone.

81.

we are kept awake by the deep fuzz of electric light, flickering bare in the humid weight and by the lazy fat moths battling upwards towards the glass bulbs, flapping loudly, no breeze- because it is too hot to sleep- too hot to do anything- I almost don’t breathe

and you like to whisper across sheets that

‘there is a place out in the mangrove trees that no one knows about but me and if I take you there you’ll forget it as soon as you leave

somewhere where the roots grow close to stand on and the birds don’t cry and those big purple flowers stay low and drip their sweet black nectar into the jars I tie to all the trees

and all the rats that are trapped there can’t swim and they fear me because they know I know and they don’t eat my honey, smart little vermin’

you, pirate swamp beauty with your crow feathers and raccoon eyes

and your parents living back in baton rouge remember that day when you picked all the flowers in old Miss Murray’s front yard and let them wilt in a coke bottle as you played fairy tea, lacey sheets on the lawn and teddybear guests and they were not invited because they were just too big

and they remember the time you scuffed your little pink shoes and cried for an hour easy in that not-so-great italian restaurant off main and even spaghetti wouldn’t stop the easy tears

and now they shake their heads and wonder however had you grown up to be what you are;

a vulture plumed madwoman with bones in her teeth and little nicks all over her arms that grow white as she tans. a girl who sits naked on the roof and screams at the sky as it grows dark with stormclouds. black hairs in all the drains.

they shake their heads. it really is a mystery.

82.

I like the secretary at the office. I like to watch her type, quickly, wiggling her littlest finger, pink, typewriter resting on the n key with the wire still punched against the ribbon, red ribbons, black ribbons, ink running smudged around her throat, dripping thick and sickly, onto her bleached blouse. I wouldn’t think one could get those stains out, but she seems to manage it. starched fresh shirt every morning. it really looks good against the black ink, and the shape of her. yeah, in the morning, it really does.

83.

to fight like silk

84. (fall in leaves)

the lost days of the ancients cull my name from your records no story of my calamity

refrain from safe sanity these old books musty like the gods own hands leatherbound

hold me down to the surface of this earth; I can't look up, i’ll fall sunward,

keep me here, walking, i want free will to move in this mine field ; every direction is mine if only I can avoid the disturbed dirt.

these are the days of babylon streetcorner prophet cry, cataclysm fever shake you deny what? the lost keys to the kingdom because the gates to heaven are BARed glass shards cover clouded streets paved in gold and bathed in honey, satisfy cold concern and run like a nomad from the wrath of the deity forgotten.

worship reserved for the wires and invisible signal; radio waves concealed. we can't feel the earth move any more, I mean circle itself, who would see past skyscraper sky? the last reserve camp mountain top fires but still the cities eke light pollution like arsenic in groundwater, re name the half-constellations bears gone with the pegasus, lost impetuous, the stars are dead and dying, who believes in the stars?

cold lying out here thin blankets on frozen ground the trashfires can't keep us warm because the news won't burn. light the paintings and burn the bushes, keep to the mansions- drier tinder for the bonfire, the rich don't fight the damp, no black mold in velvet walls, melt the gold for our ships, silver to bullet tips. rubber repertoire dollhouse mousetrap smokestack America industrial slum. accident wingsnap electricity and gaslights, blown glass bulbs, rippled rings of fat color to call our own .

my sweet my dear  my tumbleweed sick again in the night tornado dreamer steam cleaner than the soot t hat darkens our windows- haze. forced gaze upon a sight not fit for human eyes from the 14th floor, more dead than alive compromised location on the seabed, clandestine handfed parakeets, they fly wild in the city, green packs of displaced pity escaped hostage jungle-sayers.

change fumble, blue pit, oxygen mask 20,000 leagues under, bend fits, dark water grave in seashells and sand, slipped grip from shaky hands, once more with gusto, the manifeso castle guards a scent that belongs on the right arm of a real lady, roses, patchouli corseted waist laced tight against society, deny the advances of the upperclass riffraff, strikebreaker. simpleton. her perfume hanging on the air like a twisted stigmata, split strata data stream steam-ship outwards 1010 flick flick flick this lighter is out, dead-headed- yes?

your skin is oh so paper thin and its brittle like fingers and corn chips slipped up slurred speeches preach me from my soapbox with whisky and red fox number 7. greenpeace clipboard boy lets fight for their attention, subtly in jerky movements- have a moment, spare a dollar? originality the sin that caresses our open faces, convulse media breath undressed appleseed hunger. scissors and paste, consider sweet taste cultured logic. patent illness, gel cap timelapse slow release bloodstream high, prescribed, fuzz limb drop drip clipped wings and bent cells, herringbone breezes. waiting room disinfected plastic and puzzles half their pieces fled- blue yellow red pixel  fits bit type chapped lips, escapist profile vanity blooms mirror walls and disko balls obsolete and peeling light , respite regardless of ship horns and rattled tracks, despite neighborhood riot fight. rot in the attic, rot in the grave, saved ticket stubs form memory paste, wallpaper taste stapled sips of sweet red wine hot on summer nights and porches, tiki-torch lit mosquitoes kept off by the citronella and candlewax fair enough to collapse this cardboard cardhouse crushed straight flat.

yes, doctor, take a nap and call me in the morning, rock forming solid under bare feet here- we move slow, down below- cave climbers rope rickshaw darkness harnessed against empty, lent me a journey to the center of this earth. information dearth, media scarce inundated dew-eyed cry some more my dear. yes, stay young and dressed in lace, fresh-faced and bright, schoolday corpse of opulent remorse dead glass eyes stole by ravens beaded nests and stickstraw dress, graphing paper crown graven image unlike the fatherland. cherrypop lipstick red candy dipthyic, kiddie pool nightmare at high tide. the chariot has come, dear, bundle up the silverware and deny the charges. oh god, dear, please deny the charges. deny the charges.

the chrysanthemum spider

chrysanthemum spider and the queen’s daughter fair

who sat in the garden and braided her hair

and feasted on cakes and breathed in sweet air

and was lovely and rosy, the queen’s daughter fair

chrysanthemum spider who sat in his tree

and watched the queen’s daughter so pretty and free

and envied her singing and her smiling face

and longed so to take her within his embrace

yes the queen’s daughter she grew everyday

and laughed in the sunshine, the bright month of may

and the chrysanthemum spider just wasted away

so wishful, so wishing, to tell her today

now the chrysanthemum spider he was so very shy

with white gloves and glasses that covered his eyes

and he wasn’t too handsome but was ever so kind

so he’d sit and he’d wonder how him she would find

but the queen’s daughter had been spoiled by sweets

and equal to her beauty were her lies and deceit

and her laughter and smiles more often than not

were consequence of some vile plot

yes the queen’s daughter she was a bit cruel

and she’d kick at the flowers and put frogs in the pool

and much to her mother’s and father’s dismay

she listened to nothing that they had to say

but the chrysanthemum spider he knew none of that

and so he still perched, fretted and sat

and he was as lovesick as any old sailor would be

stuck on the shoreline and staring to sea

so what should he be but spending the day

gazing earthward like one lost his way

when a great wind should blow up and to his alarm

shake him right into the queen’s daughter’s arms

now as we could imagine this did not sit well

and she shrieked and she giggled and fainted a spell

and she said something callous about chrysanthemum’s face

and so he retreated in utter disgrace

but there was a detail the spider had missed

far too embarrassed by the unfortunate twist

it just so happened that the daughter had a maid

who also wore her hair in a very long braid

her name was cecelia and she was cheerful and bright

and when the wind picked up she took not a fright

and if one had looked closely through the mad crush

one might have seen the pretty maid blush

the chrysanthemum spider was sick for almost a week

and he tossed and he turned and he moaned and he weeped

and he tore at his hair and refused to eat

and his tears stained dark the wood at his feet

but when finally he climbed down to the ground

what met him there it did astound

for sitting at the base of his tree

were three pretty cakes, and a cup of hot tea

and over the weeks his sadness it stayed

but the chrysanthemum spider found himself swayed

by sweets and toffees and strawberries and cream

and he found himself wondering if it was a dream

he wondered aloud at who spared the thought

for the queen’s daughter it most obviously was not

but try as he might and try as he may

he was baffled by whom had laid the buffet

for her part cecelia was a bit sly

cut posies and pansies and left them to dry

picked roses and jasmine and strung them on lines

and left them lit gaily for spider to find

chrysanthemum spider he was quite flattered

and found himself growing enamored

by the flowers and candies upon his door

and barely thought he of queen’s daughter anymore

now our hero chrysanthemum he had quite a plan

to sit and wait and witness the hand

of the one who left sweetness and scented delight

why yes, he’d see her, he’d see her tonight

so he hid himself well in the dark banyon leaves

blended right in, no one could not see

where the outline of spider met that of the tree

and he waited so patient for his love-to-be

chrysanthemum spider he waited so long

and the green shadows stretched dark across the lawn

the sun settled slowly into bushes of rose

and poor chrysanthemum felt his eyes close

who knows how much later he woke with a start

to the snapping of twigs and a broken heart

for as his eyes focused and his body it swayed

retreating from him was a long black braid

why he cried out in anguish, he cried out in fear

why ever would she not come near?

and then a thought hit him, yes here’s what he’d do

he’d make his own gifts for the girl young and true

chrysanthemum spider spun beautiful threads

made silver tiaras to cover her head

and lace gloves and stockings so delicate and clean

yes they even caught the eye of the queen

now the queen’s daughter had become a bit jealous

of her pretty young made so glowing and zealous

who sighed and blushed at the littlest things

and whose lace-covered hands she never did wring

of course by this time, the spider had seen her

and sung from the trees of her beauty and grandeur

and she from the ground spoke back in answer

oh sweet dear, it won’t be much longer

the queen’s daughter he had so royally pouted

threats and demands she practically shouted

and bid her maid to come brush her hair

but pretty cecelia was not there

no cecelia she sat in chrysanthemum’s tree

and they laughed and they talked and the wind blew free

and they feasted on berries and dandelion wine

and found themselves getting along ever-so-fine

yes the day became night and their eyes grew large

betting on fireflies and counting the stars

and as the violin’s rose from the cricket band

chrysanthemum spider took cecelia’s hand

the two of them stepped out onto the grass

cecelia laughing and spider quiet as

he danced with her slowly under the moon

and she whispered, heavy lidded, ‘it will be morning soon’

but they danced the next night and the next afterall

kept dancing through spring, summer, and fall

danced in the snow sunshine and rain