In the past three months I've attended two Guitar Craft courses. One in Seattle the other in Barcelona. There seem to be more opportunities for silence on courses (remember I've only been to two) than off. It arrives and takes hold of the room. Stops my tongue wagging. Reminds me to listen. That I can listen. Even in a room erupting with sound.

I fell into the role of silence nazi with relative ease. During one of the solo performances (given by Patrick) a rude individual at the far end of the table had the audacity to pour themselves a glass of water in the middle of his piece. It was highly audible. Downright loud. I leaned in to see who this person was but stopped short. The performance ended. Conversation ensued. I heard a voice across the room and realized. The person I had been judging was a guest on the course. But not just any guest, a child. Greg had brought his two lovely children to visit. I was ashamed, deeply.

It was hard then not to ask the question. What would happen if we treated each other with the same patience and tenderness we treat children?

It's all too easy to forget this question or to formulate an answer to it that suits our laziness and fear more than our sense of humanity and compassion. I nannied today and witnessed, with complete, unadulterated acceptance and love, a child being themselves. On my way home I thought about how very lucky I am for this experience and was forced to ask my self yet another question. Have I ever loved and accepted, fully, another person without judgment, without expectation, without exception. I've taken stock of all those I hold closest to me and don't think so. No. This is partly because I, along with most children, have been hurt by adults my whole life. But this is not the point.

The point is that I am very, very sorry. I am ashamed to my core. And I'm going to work on that.

venice 2

It will never again be safe for you to leave the house. You might see me. (I am everywhere.) And if you did, your face would melt off. Or you would turn to stone. Or perhaps you are already stone.

I'm watching a man pick through the feathers of a blue Macaw - who may or may not be watching me back with his black eye. He edges onto the man's shoulder as a big dog nears. The dog (a Great Dane?) still has its balls. The Macaw's name is Rocky. Rocky's owner enjoys, as I do, the reactions of passerby's. I like seeing children reach out to touch the giant bird. They're so brave. He likes pretty women. Rocky is 21. Rocky may bury his owner. Macaws have a rather long life-expectancy. This one will live forever. Like Bunnicula. Or he'll die only to rise up again like a Phoenix. Like my heart in a blaze of fire and fury. You should be there the moment it happens. The fireworks. The color. Everything awash with love. It will be beautiful. When I'm ready and not until then.

Until then I amuse myself with other people's stories and try to fulfill my obligations honorably. I look down on a small patch of sidewalk from a table in a dirty cafe on Washington and pretend I don't see you there.

the tear

can happen fast. it can happen gradually. it can crack open like a fissure in the earth or be divided over time in layers. it can be like paper. or skin. it can hurt. the tear is sometimes invisible. something may look whole when in fact it is not. this is most people.

invisibility is something I've wished for lately. all the aching parts of me are so obvious. at the market or on the street it's easy. you avoid eye contact, keep to your self and fade into the background. this is impossible with family. with family, as on a goddamn packed flight to Los Angeles, you're bumped into constantly. you're seen. it's unavoidable.

my recent trip to new york completely unseated me. like being knocked off a horse and dragged several yards before losing consciousness. it was my cousin's wedding. it was a beautiful event I had trouble enjoying. the upside of all this business is that I know I'm still alive. I've experienced just about every variation of tearfulness known to me.

for instance

some tears sound like small animals. some hiccup like tired children. some wail. some possess the entire body. turn it inside out. squeeze air from the lungs until there's none left. some hide in the clenched jaw. in the stomach. some moan and rock like a seasick sailor. are captured by the eyelids. soaked like sponges around each crease smoothing them out. the slow but steady trickle. guilty tears. angry tears. tears which break us in half and prevent us from walking or standing up straight. grab hold of the shoulders and shake us violently. pass unseen from eyes to hands. whose marks remain as splashes on paper, spots of snot and blots of wetness on t-shirts or mascara stains on pillowcases. we wear them. we wash and try to iron them out. our faces.

I left yoga today feeling emotionally unsettled. During my practice I realized I wasn't completely there. Not necessarily because my attention had wandered, but because I was insecure. I had a very similar experience during Kung Fu not long ago, but had the added disadvantage of being distracted by a remote but powerful memory. In any case, I circumvented personal interaction with my teacher and headed for the door, for the safety of anonymity. Which, of course, led me to the local Starbucks where I purchased my comfort beverage of choice and a banana. I went outside to find a seat and was greeted warmly by an elderly gentleman who was sitting alone. I selected a seat at the table closest to his without hesitation.

It wasn't long before I realized this sweet little old man was thumbing through the pages of a XXX-rated sex magazine. This effected me in a way I couldn't have anticipated. Whatever response this man hoped to elicit I wasn't sure, but I did know one thing; he wasn't going to hurt me. This was inexplicably comforting. Whatever he held in his mind didn't matter. It had nothing to do with me and couldn't hurt me in any way. He was so obviously past the age of being capable of sexual violence, perhaps even sexual function.

I didn't leave for a while. Walking away I felt quieted and had the sense that this man represented something to me - perhaps my own unbalanced desires (sex being such an easy one for people to distort). Perhaps one day mine will wither and age. If I stop nurturing them they lose their power. Perhaps one day they will be as scary to me as this old man and his pictures, instead of the monsters they are now.

animal sleep

shy and resistant he places his 
head in my hand for a scratch.
having woken from animal sleep.
my basic weakness is this: your
hand any hand reaching I need to be
touched and to touch everything
with love. with curiosity. my 
need to know scratched tenderly.

Today I saw your faces everywhere I looked.
Tomorrow I will only ache to see them.

venice 1

I saw a homeless man a few nights ago

palms upturned, arms outstretched under a beam

of fluorescent light behind a convenient store in Venice.

He spoke softly to himself as we drove by.

It was the light of God, of knowledge,

and he was Jesus, Muhammad or Moses.

prayer 1

there are too many clocks in this house to be counted
each set to flow into every other. each moment pulling toward the next
like the sound of soup brought in through the front teeth
sitting alone perhaps in an italian restaurant

clocks, hands, teeth, checkered table cloths and
bread rolls, the moment I slipped out of the bath. all these converge.
our soup of membranes and casual conversation. our fucking
our loving. everything we make together holy

salty

the sea laps             its foam bath           back to itself

a dream reversed                    receding a great splash 

a room filled then emptied

you were behind the wheel         of a whale blowhole 

swallowed                   mouth full of krill I swam       I 

dusted the sand from my feet       and got back in my 

car        I        tore out                                   myovaries

birdhouses

The electrical wires in this city crackle. The way a microphone might or speakers in a car which are blown out. I haven’t been here so long yet that I don’t pause to look up. I wait for them to fall on my head. Like twigs I expect them to snap. I’ve already been brought to trial. I sent a head-shot and a photo in my bathing suit ahead of me. It was enough. 

Everyone wants to know how I am. Only I can see the lines in my knuckles. Like dried earth. Andy Goldsworthy's garden of red leaves slide down my legs a cunt of thorns.

All girls draw their bodies as trees. And get tattoos of roses. There’s a birdhouse in the back yard I left unfilled. There is nothing here to eat.

children 1

if I give them what they want, they promise to forgive me. that's how much I mean to them. paper boats floating. then tipped over. each with its own little captain. and if I cry it makes them feel better. it makes their hope more buoyant. softens the blow. I resist placing my happiness in the hands of others. this makes me "selfish." my boat is supposed to be surrendered completely. without them even asking.

one of a thousand regrets

is there still time to return

all the things I bought
(for comfort)
in exchange for my absolute
knowledge
that all things are holy?

concentric circles

It's only been a month, but the Atlanta I knew no longer exists. It is having a gas crisis and I'm paying a dollar fifty three at the pump. The people I love there are still moving in concentric circles. Are meeting on purpose and by accident in any number of places. Are battling six foot cockroaches under the deck and drinking beer. They're looking out at the city from the patio of the Standard and trying to get comfortable in those unreasonably high metal chairs. I know it would be easier and healthier for me to put these aside. Live in the present. But the smells and sounds of that city are with me. As you are with me. And it's not so easy.

our last meal. my words still echo in our stairwell.

You ask me why I chose the things I did. Somehow every time I try to close my hand it's forced open down upon itself and straight through again. The point is I have no idea. You. And I. Are always at it's mercy. At my heart's whim. With no way to forgive it. There's nothing to forgive. 

pollination

an egg burst open a pregnant and contagious happiness, immeasurable, runs the length of my body and cannot be taken away. my harp is a harmonium woven bit of tantrum not afraid. of bees a chrysanthemum night-blooming cereus eats these

I am grateful. I couldn't ask for more. I won't.

except everyone's desire is to be known. as close as you can come anyway. what this indicates is complicated. played out so many ways. I remember going through the bible in Ms. Robertson's class. so and so knew so and so. that was short for sex.

maybe the desire to get close. closer. everyone's desire also to be loved. to form relationships. connections. inserting our lives tenderly sometimes violently into the stories of others. and we're not alone. we're a little closer to something. maybe ourselves.

sometimes I am lonely without realizing it. sometimes I catch myself on the brink of no longer being lonely. and that person in me wants to draw closer and is not ashamed. of this need.

I'd like to joke at myself and my language my loneliness, because what I've just written has made me fidgety and vulnerable.

I won't because sometimes we shoot for honesty and fall short. Then we go home and write about it, bravely resisting deletion.

things you shouldn't put in your mouth

hunks of rosewood and ebony were what you brought me this october the reason parents won't let children on halloween the soft sweet candy with something extra in-between 

i knew better than to carve myself into it but there were things i wanted to scream (FUCK YOU) some accusations but mostly just a robins egg or two that never hatched and i cried you were upset

Camp Caravan, NST - My first course.

the people and the space they provided allowed me to be. neither good, nor bad. I was there to learn as a beginner, not pay for my deficiencies as a person. and because I allowed my self to be, I was what I needed most. and even more surprisingly magical, by my being my self, I also became what others needed.

that's all I want in a relationship. any kind of relationship.
what about love, you ask?
that is love.

force

tonight I am a prisoner in this house. paper mache breasts exposed. 
exonerate my true body under the light, words betray us. not birth-
mark fingerprints on a mirror or extra glasses emptied then edited
out or swallowed down it wasn't my real heart that stopped beating
but another. layers of glue and smeared headlines. a woman kid-
napped. taken into custody gunned down choking. on silence

letters

Azar means scarlet in Farsi. Though I've studied Farsi I didn't know that until I looked it up just now. I had drinks at The Standard with Paul this evening. You can see the capital from there and Azar, which I guess is a liquor store. Z is a seldom-used letter in the English alphabet. I can imagine the proprietor of Azar having trouble purchasing the neon Z required for his sign. Perhaps they don't bother to make Zs. Perhaps Zs are more expensive. In any case, it's clear that the Z in this sign is really a horizontal N. I contemplated that this evening while feeling mildly impressed with myself for having noticed.

Barber, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra op. 14

I walked into the orchestra room one afternoon for rehearsal and heard this. It was one of Mr. Kim's many gifts to me. I was floored. I sat motionless in front of the speakers, completely fixated. I still can't listen to it without having galaxies swirl around in my head - fabulous, colorful nebulae, with me floating amongst them. This and the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 used to put me to sleep every night in high school. If I could gift these two recordings to you people right now I would. We could all lie on our backs and stargaze.

P.

the story of a girl silhouetted by lamplight and mist. smoke swirling from her lit cigarette. a blotted scrap of paper she holds up to the light (trying to decipher its code). she thinks it means nothing and is right.

old entry which somehow feels relevant today

I prefer the smell of chai to the man sitting in front of me. This is an immediate preference. I'm drinking a chai and the man in front of me reeks of patchouli, hair gel and salty food - food that would give me indigestion were I to eat it. I have indigestion anyway. And my body doesn't fold like it used to. I like the familiarity of buttons. This too is immediate. Right now I prefer the word button to zipper. Tomorrow I might fancy a different word, Salat perhaps, in Farsi or something else I saw while sitting idly and somewhat displaced in a book store. I'm tired now so I don't mind lingering on tastes. My body doesn't fold like it used to. A bend at the hip or waist creates an uncomfortable bubble of flesh-not-muscle. If you were to fold me in half you'd find it impossible to create a single crease. It would instead be a succession of three or four. 

A man in a jeep (on his way to me, wondering if I'm mad at him for being late) doesn't walk like others. He lopes. He'll be loping his way here in a few minutes. Maybe relationships themselves are nothing but this. Not what is said, not what's done and undone by time, stepped in or out of, but the timing of the entrance itself - into my life and then into this book store. Relationships carry their own unique rhythms and pauses, starts and stops.  I am drawn to and repelled constantly by romantic love. How infuriating always winning and losing each other to time and circumstance. One day you might find me searching endlessly for those red, beaded earrings I swore I left atop the dresser (to the right of my grandfather's picture and to the left of my hairbrush, also tangled and floating, strand by strand in time). You might commit yourself to writing your name on boxes, annotating carefully their contents only to later refill them with something different. The permanent marker marks remain, everything else changed.

for those in peril on the sea

trying to close our mouths to each other our ears. letting the water flow in. is tender the strange and somehow incorruptible heart as it reaches out. we reach for the sides. each man to himself and in another. rocking. how we try to hold onto it.

If I were a pie, divided.

I've gotten soft. My mind is soft, my belly is soft, my writing is soft. Jelly soft, not babyskin soft. Contentment will do that to a person if they're not careful. Contentment and allowing oneself to age too long too comfortably. Because along with this softness, has also come its reverse. Certain beliefs, certain ways of thinking have begun to calcify in my mind. I still enjoy the unknown, but I've never been this afraid of losing myself to it. At the same time, as though the nature of everything is to always be in complete contradiction to itself, it's clear that the impossibility of my getting lost (in Atlanta) has made it almost a certainty.

happiness is not enough

my hands work their way beneath your
shirt as you chop onions. a burst bulb

the kitchen offers only its half-light
a half-life. love is only a half-life.

half settling in the finger's bones to stay,
as if to stay. half going, going, gone with the

odor of onion washed from the lines
of the palm, the index finger, the thumb.

Persephone

I've always enjoyed pomegranates. perhaps I'm just drawn to disaster. to inevitability. everybody leaves if they get the chance. I wonder who and where I will be leaving from or returning to next fall. a new season has come to Atlanta, as surprising as ever. I've begun knitting. it's easy to appreciate bead-work and lace in Spring. the dogwoods have come alive so many other blossoming trees.

I was sitting on the front porch, sock monkey flannel pajamas, watching the storm roll in. I've always lived close to a highway or railroad. trains are sentimental (who doesn't enjoy the passing of a train?), but no one ever told me I would grow to love the sound of the highway. a poor-man's substitute for living by the beach.

there's a tornardo in the city and I'm easily swept away. I don't understand love. a night in Chicago. so much time to have passed. this was in 2005, a week before my marriage. I was there for a conference. I think I told you about it, the one where I was massively impressive?

my sister met us at our hotel. we had dinner at the navy pier. the ferris wheel climbed its great height. none of us could deny its beauty. the city spread before us and (I shit you not) fireworks went off as we reached its apex. lake michigan. the fairground swings. I suggest leaving your shoes behind. round and round bare feet and buildings spinning. I've never written about it. I have to say it was one of my happier moments.

and of course the blues bar we ended up at. I was a hoochie-cootchie woman. these past months I've had a crash course in embarrassment. bit of a light weight. but that night was absolute abandon. I may never be myself again. that night I was beautiful for sure.

does it ever mean as much to others as it does to you? I think not, but I digress.

suckas

I've been accepted to University of Pittsburgh's MFA program in poetry.

P.S.

I bought a guitar last night.

I also received my first rejection letter. It was from Washington. I think I'll frame it.

And okay yes, after 6-plus years of absolute sobriety, I have started drinking again. If you think that makes me a hypocrite you're probably right.

thanksgiving reminds me of Lucile. when we arrived she would always be in the kitchen, working a pie crust or checking the turkey. her hands covered in flour or some other ingredient, she’d be careful to wipe them in her apron before giving you a hug.

we move a little farther from her as it moves a little closer to us. the familiar clock of nothing unexpected. everyone bothered by death they make a list. leftovers become more valuable and are fought over. everyone bothered by death. my father next to my mother can't sit still. my mother describes his mother. fetal position, blood-soaked tile, night gown lifted up, toilet full.