Duderstadt
6:45am, in a dark and empty square, my yesterday started with a stranger, Frank. 3 hours into the mountains, an ultra-specialized clinic for cell harvesting was waiting. There were two snow storms. A hail storm. We got lost 5 times. I announced I knew his secret: he was driving in to the woods to kidnap me. Young and fluent but with standard German reserve, his face was blank. Didn’t get it. Didn’t like it. Ahh, no. A beat, then a slight smile, “And Frank is not even my real name.” A partner, I had! A partner in appreciating mishaps. He became “Fake Frank”. Stories evolved about our mission to this mountain place: we were blood smugglers, probably for the Russian mafia; I was the tougher gangster, even though he’s 6’5” and climbs mountains. Obviously. We were funnier than two strangers should be, Fake Frank and the Tiny Gangster, shocked, a little, by all the laughing.
Our destination arrived. The door handle was a hand holding a rod. A hand. Naturally, I assumed Bowie, the Goblin King, lay just beyond. But no, only a building older than my country. And. A 2 hour fascinating “chat” (read: lecture) about cellular structure and immunology with a dash of molecular biology. It being my reaping time, they harvested 25 vials of blood, using the left arm as the right had fallen fallow. Food happened at, what I realized was, the German version of Walmart. So good though. Leaving, we got lost 2 more times. Maybe a small house and a herd of sheep were in our future, stranded in this valley between crests. Alas, the road. A camera flash of a rainbow between storms. Me and Fake Frank on the road from Duderstadt.
...and fear
...and fear. let fear not be your beast or ghost, your roadmap or process. so often we think quenching or dampening the fear is the solution. that's not bravery: that's slavery. an action taken solely to quiet a fear leads, inevitably, to more fear, more pain, more problems. but the one based on faith, on radical courage and enlightened bravery...that's where the miracle is, where the stillness falls, the well-spring from which all solutions (not fixes) emerge.
tall phantom made of stories and smoke
I see you on Broadway and Broome StreetIn a black coat walkingTo the beat of falling February snowI see our hands together, a few steps upAnd into the Soho GrandOur eternity screaming yes yes from an 8th floor roomI feel myself asleep across youPlane flying homeMy future in your fate5-21-10
as pretty as
the calm drawl of green mile is on again. i do this at night. a movie plays while i eat some cookies from the bakery down the street. before i eat them, i soak them in half and half. it's a childish ritual that i never did when i was a child. tonight it's raining. just simple rain. earlier, on the coast, the one by which i work, the wind played tough with the rain and knocked it against palms and people, straining both. i imagined it as snow. all snow. and manhattan, the west side, during a good season, with the well stocked tree lot on the corner. i imagined it as winter. clothed in the most chic of black frocks, the cold world held at bay by thin windows and our friendly driver with the umbrella and an out stretched hand. i've been there, in the limelight of the H. Stern, bathed in the smell of roasted almonds.12-10-06
Were it not for him
The hungry spell of the season's air turns her head to the open window. Outside, the earth promises to draw blossoms from the chilly branches, from the chilly buds, from the chilly stalks. This is an ivory blending of seasons and smells and it all points to a time he returns. Among the folds of ornamental oranges, the close of the year's first month and a Hallmark holiday, he comes.And their lips taste the same way they have for years, like fierceness, like need. As lovers, they're rough and bold and can't forgive each other for being there. And they're familiar. She smells like always and he touches her face to probe her mouth, to feel her smile. They paw and shuffle and compete to fake the best indifference. It's a curse and she knows it. After she loves him, he hates her for it. And she turns mean.And, when he's gone, she turns back to the window, to the smell of a chilly season, to the earth's promise to bring buds from the branches and stalks.1-31-08
yours
I want only today the taste of youTo rest amid the folds and soundsOf you sleepingTo be your canopyAnd togetherTo extend ourselves,together now,out intoAn afternoonentrusted to an ocean's turn,where your eyes, I own, their bluenessand what they see along the shadow linesof my tender back beforebowingyour fingers explore what next you kiss
Tucson
8 parts gin and 1 part tonic, katz at the pizza place, brian frain, granola, 4th, desert, david...always...david, sheila slayton, smokefree nooners, great weed, "it wasn't me," boys with nicknames, maloney's, o'malleys, sobreity fish, fear, loss, baby, adult, bike, tar, black dog, motorcycle death, mt lemon, lost car, lost years, lost baby, wandering hands, mozart with a "z", unbearable, too good, parliments, fat tire, martinis, e at graves', wall of cans, dorny, deep poetry, bad poetry, 7 am dance, dead boy visitor, jocelynn, bison, witches, an attempt, outkast, mexico...oh holy god...mexico, slippery handcuffs, alabama, ego for a room, andy, eric, jeff, keith, 2 am walmart, lucas' pedestal, pukeface, one eye on the road, ill-fated, ulcers, church, james, kimmy, brussle sprouts, sorry about the windshield paul, bud light, jack daniels, eight dollar wine, 3 bottles, a glass for breakfast, ice cream is a meal, vodka, not enough, 114, poetry center, a woman named diza, elizabeth's lead, emerson's wallet, ginger's car, noelle's parents, noelle, la paz, coronado, drinking meds, tasting tylenol, but i loved you, i swear