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. 

fig tree

some fallen, others picked

washed and counted with
the rest of our blessings

greeting card

I feel ashamed to admit

sometimes I see no point at all.
Our lives may in fact be
profoundly pointless, sad,
small, indistinguishable
from any other, mine especially.

feeding

we eat our own bread

but stir someone else's soup -
hearts in our mouths
and ears to the door.

grown up before your eyes a city

a black and white photo of Ponce takes its place

elsewhere or if not trees my ficus will come with me.

some ties just will not tie (before we leave)

a paper rose twisted, smelling of lavender, coming undone.

the day I carried it home on my lap. atlanta

a self-portrait. your reds, yellows and browns

dream in turquoise hoping. everything will happen

public and private

the doors were open. were dusty.

you had already squeaked your way back through the mud.
with the others. with your instruments.

lamp-light from the street outside. a lone chair.
a cello. I closed my eyes.

whatever you heard, you heard from the proper distance -
(perhaps walking away) and it was me as I am. 

not everything else.

all women

maybe the last time you saw that friend was on a tuesday.

today is wednesday and I have sparkles on my hands from playing with children. clay too. we made coil bowls. one for the office.

you and you and you. wouldn't play well together. in a room. my head.

but good news. i've met a few brave ones lately. sorry, they were all women.

and these,

though they were not mine,
became Mt. Tam and every
other lost landscape.

belly talk

Yours in the accent of a Swedish (not French) chef and

mine in the monotone drone of a wall-street reporter.

Dancing at the Righteous Room

Somewhere it is written, people are supposed to be sad when something breaks. If you accept this without question, you're missing out. There is some utility and joy to be found, even in broken things, if one is only open to it. Loss is a poor excuse for sadness, and an even poorer excuse for lack of creativity and imagination.

This is how, despite our great loss, we found ourselves dancing to the Smiths in an almost-empty bar in the middle of the day. How appropriate, how phoenix-like, how poetic - our voices rising in unison to the chorus, "why do I give valuable time to people who don't care if I live or die."

Together we can stamp out world hunger, trigger events that will eventually lead to world peace, tip the scales of unhappiness in the universe and replace thousands of haters with lovers. Together we can do all this. You and I. Cannot be replaced, dear. Not with sadness.

every time I close my heart I make a purchase

in my faith there is

a crack large enough to fit
any peddlers boot.

I went to the circus

and was ashamed.

There was this one act -
a couple who dangled from silks;

I couldn't watch their
love-making.

Suspended, they kept each other
from what I could not.

Apology for Want

I can't accept I

had nothing to do with it,
therefore, I apologize
for having been loved.

I slow down to look 
at wrecks on the interstate.
Some I even love.

Squirrels

I saw Benjamin play for the first time in years tonight. He was absolutely brilliant. What I want to note from this evening, however, was an acute desire I had (while peeing) to rifle through a purse which happened to be left on the floor of the bathroom (wide open beside me). My impulse didn't involve theft in any way, but a longing to know its contents secretly, intimately - like looking in lighted windows at night time, or squirrels.

Squirrels you ask? I wanted to be one as a kid. There's no such thing as private property to a squirrel. I could trounce around in everyone else's yard, peer through their windows and eat their vegetables (our neighbors had a garden). I would have total freedom to roam and observe, unobtrusively, these very peculiar humans and no one would be the least perturbed by my presence - save the Reeds, whose tomatoes I would have stolen.

what's on the menu

First course: toasted bagel with melted Camembert and slices of avocado.

I thought I might be having an anxiety attack when I realized I hadn't had anything to eat all day but coffee and espresso.

Second course: cookie dough. When I bought it I told myself I would have it to bake in the event I had a friend over. At last, the truth comes out (of the can by the spoonful). Motives are slippery little things, even when absolutely nothing is riding on it.

Third course: not yet, but it's cooking. I've practically written an essay on it; how D. is an arrogant, disrespectful, patronizing dick-head who doesn't know how to treat people, least of all me.

Strange thing. I only get upset about it at night before sleep. I lie there blinking, arguing, then finally turning on the light and jotting down a few fresh insults. My latest recipe for trouble.

Left

there was this one time. yes, we were in the mountains. that old antebellum bed and breakfast with the two great oaks out front. it was damp the evening we drove in. and cold. I could see your breath and you could see mine. we brought up your cd player. mississippi john hurt in the low-light. candy man. stepping on each-other's feet. we woke that morning. two mugs of coffee settled into rocking chairs. drops of water on the tin roof. looking out, we sensed a rightness. in everything. accepted what it offered. the left hand of the future not yet having pointed us away.

D.

at some point he stopped seeing me, if he saw me at all, and I stopped understanding how one could be both caring and uncaring at the same time. to me it was clear how one prevailed over the other.

his show was last Friday. I was there, but not there. ghost-like. a trail grown cold. a memory one goes to less and less. his affection was perfunctory, without recognition. as though we had shared nothing. this is what hurts and what I can't understand, what makes the whole thing feel eerily unreal. imaginary. worthless, yet hard to put down. had it been anything, guilt maybe convenience. want. all in passing.