Keeper of Bees

waking up

2011-01-30T01:49:00.000-08:00

Reinventing yourself is a ghastly business

...or that is what I would imagine I would say, years from now, in some nondescript airport bar where everyone is escaping to or from something else It seems somehow fitting, meaningful in its own way.

The constant tight rope walk between giving and giving up, the way sometimes they occupy the same gasp of breath. The way transformation never really prepares you for that which is left behind, the pain in growth. It builds on its own momentum until things pass by in a glaring blur of light and sound.

The way every day decisions take on larger than life meaning, the realization that we are sculpted and molded in each blink of an eye. It's the slow build-up, the rising crest of an orchestral interlude. Funny how change always implies a surge forwards.

The metamorphosis of the mundane.

I've always clung so tightly to these granules of chaotic inspiration, buoying me along the tides. These revelatory moments as the world becomes stilled, blanketed in the night sky not yet dawn. This place of in-between, ripened with the possibility of imagination. The future and the past colliding in this hour.

For once I feel prepared for the unblemished dawn.

image

2011-01-27T16:15:00.000-08:00

I have a confession: I hate exercising.

It hasn't really been a problem up until now. I've always had a quick eye roll at the ready for the lifers of the gym, the ones whose rippling biceps were the size of Rhode Island. It seemed like such a practice in vanity to me, and I was determined not to get involved. The irony that I said all this while having a flat stomach and little body fat was completely lost on me.

Fast forward five years.

The process of getting ready now includes finding a pair of jeans I can actually fit into, or at least clasp the button. I stubbornly refuse to buy a larger pair of pants. It's like I want to believe that, magically, the weight will melt off or somehow redistribute itself in my sleep. And in the meantime, I am biding my time.

I wouldn't consider myself overweight, for once I am actually at a healthy weight, but I am desperately out of shape. I have what some have affectionately referred to as a muffin top, and it basically drives me insane. Of course, the practical approach would include getting involved in an exercise regimen and monitoring my diet. But, in case we haven't met yet, I'm anything but practical.

That isn't to say, I haven't had good intentions - I've started cooking at home more. Instead of indulging in truffle macaroni and cheese, I'm preparing organic kale salad with naval oranges and walnuts. It's one of the few concessions I have been able to incorporate into my life on a regular basis.

The exercise routine still remains a struggle.

Mind you, at the height of my battle with depression, I used exercise as an outlet to purge all the angst frothing to the surface. I ran about six days a week for an hour or more - with weights. I had lost so much weight at that time I was put on calorie drinks just to keep up with what I was losing. My cardiovascular system was in the best shape but the rest of me wasn't doing so well.

So I stopped. And picking up that particular torch has not been easy. Yesterday, I unrolled the yoga mat and popped in a disc and got about 10 minutes into the routine, barely enough time to warm-up before I abandoned the project.

There is some inner resistance that I need to pinpoint and overcome.

It's a humbling experience, to be on the other side of the struggle with weight. Before, I couldn't manage to keep a pound on, now it feels like I have too many. A bit of a goldilocks dilemma. But, it isn't so much the weight itself, like I said, I'm at a really healthy weight for the first time, it's just about toning and being active at this point. But it's still weird to have to think about these things for the first time in my life.

What I am lacking is motivation, at least when it comes time to sit down and devote an hour to a yoga routine. I have plenty of motivation when I am at my wits end with trying to hide my stomach underneath a sweater or sucking my stomach in until I am nearly out of breath. It's completely obscene.

I suppose a lot of it has to do with re-imagining myself as a different person, in this case physically different. A person who has, up until now, been completely foreign to me. It's about reconciling the me I strove so hard to get back to and the me I am today and trying to work through the dissonance between the two.

Or maybe, just maybe, I should just find some way to get through an hour yoga set and let the rest sort itself out.

much ado about nothing

2011-01-19T22:13:00.000-08:00

there are only so many entries i can begin with an apology. i meant to write, i really did.

i have been nibbling around the crust of life, prim and proper, one pinky extended outward. i owe most of my outings to a parade of first dates, the type when there is the clatter of silverware and every time someone opens their mouth the sound of uncomfortable rustling fabric comes spilling out.

i believe i am beginning to become quite adept at navigating the awkward. the universal signal of food in the teeth, the soft, slow spreading grin and gentle eyes in between words compacted together to fill the silence. i've mastered stirring the drink and the lean-in. sometimes i am a million miles away, buoyed only by the faint twinkle of champagne bubbles glowing in the glass; others, clinging to a shipwreck moment.

i wish i still had a vocabulary for such things. the cleft hearted pitter patter of possibilities, the white knuckled do i or don't i kiss as the velvet curtains shuffle closed on the evening. my phone overflows with alphabetized dinners and drinks. most of them i have forgotten.

it's been interesting, an adjective i fall upon when nothing else rises to the frothy surface. some day i might collect these moments, spread them out in the late summer moonlight until they become nouns, adjectives, and verbs all at once.

for now the static will suffice.

narrative

2011-01-09T12:38:00.000-08:00

behind my eyes there is a foggy stew condensing, puddling into murky images of last night's revelry - effervescing lights, the sanguine humour of the word latina as it rolls of the proprietor's tongue, a champagne cork bobbing listlessly in a bucket of ice. beyond the windows the city hums electric, punctuated by the staccato movement of traffic at the nearby light. i become jello and let the music inside reverberate through me, causing me to sway. there are stories, like keys, jangling in my pocket. i lease myself to the night, claiming it later at the coat check - an ending that seems more like a beginning.

a place to start

2010-12-31T11:34:00.000-08:00

on the eve of a new year, my thoughts filter down to change. 2010 was, ostensibly, a year of stabilization. it was about putting my ducks in a row, cleaning up the detritus of the past and moving forward in a meaningful way. i'm not really prepared to say it was successful or unsuccessful but it was revealing.

as 2011 approaches, i have to say that i am a bit scared. or perhaps scared is not the right word, nervous? anxious?.

taking the lessons from 2010, i've slowly come to the realization that the chapter of my life in Minnesota is coming to a close. gradually the connections i have here, to this place of my birth, have withered away.

so, now what?

i have felt the winds of change urging me elsewhere for a while but i have been kind of terrified with the possibility of 'elsewhere'. Minnesota is all i have ever known. but my spirit hungers for a fresh start and it seems fate has been leaving subtle clues for me this whole time, now too numerous to ignore.

i don't know how it will work out, how i will fare untethered and without a safety net, but i know that to move forward it actually requires a physical move from this place. so as 2011 approaches, i greet it with a bit of trepidation, a bit forlorn, but also with open arms to the possibilities, to the change, to a new beginning and adventure.

deep breath.

i am ready, 2011.

2010-12-27T07:10:00.001-08:00

i am rarely in sync with a seasonal calendar, so it should come as no surprise that already i am thinking of the new year. i have a collection of well-intentioned resolutions ticking their way across my brain.

today i am craving open roads, a map with no discernible destination, and new beginnings.

random hyperbole

2010-12-15T21:23:00.000-08:00

i am adding 'easy listening' to terms i dislike. there should be nothing easy about listening, it implies passivity. listening should require the flexing of muscles, blood with an incantation, gritted teeth. listening should never be entered into lightly, it should always be accompanied by a startling earthquake, a flash of blinding light.

just don't get me started on 'straight-acting'

midnight musings

2010-12-11T21:29:00.000-08:00

occasionally i can catch the faint sound of wind chimes clinking together, eerily signaling the lack of movement outside. the limbs of the evergreen outside my door sag heavily with their new winter weight

tonight i hunt for frozen vocals, settling on a cover of Headphones done by Atlas Sound.

the world is a snapshot of still-life, save for the occasional gust of cold wind that stirs apparitions of flurries dancing across the landscape, illuminated by a solitary pool of light from the street lamps.

my fingers itch for the camera or the wild abandon to commit the first snow angel upon this freshly fallen canvas.

hello? hello again.

2010-12-07T19:38:00.000-08:00

it always seems the quietest when it is a cold night, as if the sounds are frozen in the frigid wind, stopped like the breath during that first icy blast of air in the lungs.

occasionally, above the din of the languid, breathy lyrics of my music, i can hear brief snippets of my neighbor's television program, the garbled indistinct raucous of prime-time television. it seems uncomfortably intimate, my unintentional eavesdropping; the reminder that a stranger lives and breathes on the other side of a plaster wall.

the staccato irregularity of my writing has been mostly my own doing, self-censorship bleeding onto the page, marring the finished product in doubt. somewhere, among the proliferation of drafts, there was good intention. with any luck, sharing any old drivel that flits across my mind long enough to spur a verbal image will dispel the need to be 'good' to write.

i have been toying with the idea of lower-case writing as of late, what it might reflect in the reader. i imagine dispelling self-importance of the word and the thing itself, the juxtaposition of this with writing as an art, elevating the mundane to the inspired, is something i want to play with going forward.

that, or i have gotten incredibly lazy.

i have stories bubbling over, frothing in the miasma of experience. with any luck, something will ignite and set the whole lot aflame, presenting enough ash to form a sentence or two. the immolation of my silent history.

the irony that i am thawing just when the world outside is crystalized in winter is not lost on me.

what can i say, i have always been notoriously out of sync.

clatter of the typewriter keys

2010-10-29T03:15:00.000-07:00

"journeys, like artists, are born and not made. a thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will - whatever we may think"

- Lawrence Durrell

beginnings are the hardest. i'm not certain if i mean in writing or in life, or both. i suppose i'm not very adept at endings either.

the past three years have been fraught with unique challenges. i always assumed the bulk of the work was done in my grieving, but i believe i was mistaken. the reality is the work has just begun: the rebuilding, the piecing together, the rediscovery and remolding. in the coming months there will be a careful tending on tiny seeds, creating a space where growth can happen.

of course i am excited, if not a bit scared. i doubt this needs elucidating but i am a bit of a control freak. i have a problem in letting go, my credo is less laissez-faire and more comme il faut.

i am curious to see what beginnings have yet to be written

on being in between here and there

2010-10-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

it was lovely; the haze masking the tops of skyscrapers downtown, vibrant lights turning to ghostly apparitions, crisp and sturdy frameworks muddying with a stroke of an impressionist brush.

today a nursery rhyme rattles in my head "the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout...", outside a perpetual mist covers everything. i remain mummified in a downed comforter, heavy-hearted french jazz crooning from the corner of the room.

i am still fleshing out a vocabulary for the night before. a near-manic indulgence in the city, hungry to find something, anything resembling a spark. the way i realized i didn't know where we were going half of the time and how, now, the phrase, "sometimes you need to get lost to find what you are looking for" punctuates everything.

for now i have disjointed images of dark walnut paneled vestibules and painted ceilings lit with the ambient glow of a crystal chandelier dancing in my head, of orchids floating idly on the surface of flaxen champagne cocktails, the echoing sounds of a bass being plucked and the accompanying frantic dance of piano keys, and of course the tops of skyscrapers fading into a murky sky that somehow seemed the perfect way to end the evening, our stomachs and minds full.

perhaps, just perhaps, it need not be more than that.

hi, society

2010-10-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

autumn always brings with it the crackled edges of aged history pages, leaves of moments that crunch underfoot.

this past weekend was epicurean, familiar cocktails and laughter brimming at the edge of something at once both tangible and ethereal: a cookbook signing at a soon-to-be-open restaurant, appetizers and drinks at a downtown gem afterwards. a recognition that the past isn't as distant as it sometimes feels.

there is a molecule of myself still here.

toasts for the engagement of two friends, stories and champagne that followed... it felt so familiar in the most comforting way; the reminder that life is as effervescent as ever.

it has propelled me forward, this activity. an electrical charge suitably reminiscent of the gothic pages of Frankenstein.

"it's alive!"

i am laying my head upon downy pillow with intentions of hot cocoa, a warm sweater, and watching the sun come up through the trees tomorrow.

flare

2010-10-19T06:43:00.001-07:00

still here.

still thinking.

Pardoned

2010-10-08T03:38:00.000-07:00

"You have a right to experiment with your life. You will make mistakes. And they are right too."

-Anaïs Nin

already the day unfurls like a flame, flickering at the edges of the world, igniting first a slow-burn and then a conflagration of light.

armed with an anthem by Sufjan Stevens, a secondhand cardigan with a loose thread, and the penny dreadful of my life I offer myself up in the wake of ashes.

here feels familiar, the faint smell of sulfur, the sensation of skinned knees.

at last, I am home.

*thanks to Twitches for the fire imagery that has rattled around in my brain since reading her amazing poem, Missing Person, yesterday.

Caveat Emptor

2010-10-07T11:44:00.000-07:00

Somewhere along this journey a funny thing happened...

It's hard to write with an audience.

Before, in the blogosphere, my thoughts were relatively unencumbered by the idea that people were reading them. The shield of anonymity can be a powerful thing. But, as my writing seemed to grow and my life became rife with stories, it became less about myself and more about being interesting, being what I thought I should be (or at the very least being poetic about things). It's a pattern I seem to follow a lot in life, despite my earnest attempts to the contrary.

So, I stopped writing. It mimicked a larger retreat from the world, one which I became guarded, self-censored, and nervous about being myself. I have repeatedly attempted to break through this self-erected wall without much success. There have been a lot of false starts and premature retreats, as undoubtedly the history of my blog is evident. It's something of a vicious cycle, feeding off my plethora of insecurities.

I have been in this place before. A place of hesitation and doubt.

When I changed schools back in the day I was so worried about what other people might think of me that I barely uttered two words during the four years I was there. I was an apparition, a mere shadow of a person. I look back on those days with a sensible amount of regret, disappointed I didn't seize the opportunities each new day presented. I find myself feeling much the same now.

My return to writing is one minor step to rebuilding myself, giving form to my inner self that has for too long been crushed under the weight of self-regulation run amok. I can't promise that my writing will be more than a utilitarian account of days, moments; snapshots of thoughts devoid of any poetic dressing, but at the risk of boring anyone, it's something I must do for myself.

I am going to be attempting to be brutally honest, as honest as I can be at this juncture about my life. One of my greatest fears is the honest admission that I still struggle on a daily basis with depression. I hate that. But I also can't be burdened by the fear that I will be judged because of it, if anything is to change.

Some of these entries, undoubtedly, will be about my battles, peppered with a liberal amount of my insecurities in an effort to purge them from my consciousness, to conquer and move beyond them. I hope it's not perceived as maudlin or self-indulgent wallowing. I ache when I think that I have become "that guy", the one that sucks the joy out of the room.

Hopefully my writing will grow stronger once more as I recover a bit of my footing, rediscover myself, and embark on the next leg of my journey in life. With any luck I'll start existing without the preface of an apology to every thing I do.

✌ ♥

Through The Looking Glass

2010-06-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then.

- Lewis Carroll

At the risk of having used that quote before, well... I am using that quote.

My life seems a whirlwind of change as of late; in constant flux. It's as if the life that lay dormant inside of me for so long has suddenly burst forth: an exclamation, a crackle of electricity, a supernova.

It feels like things are coming together, stitching me up at the seams.

Now, if only I can find my creative mirror image...

Trinket of Time

2010-06-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

We lit up the sky

with our humming

electric hearts

leaving sunbeams

in our wake...

There is a poem attempting to emerge inside. I've got ideas of Hermes or some archangel, though the latter seems a bit heavier than what I need for some reason.

A pot of unformed words slowly bubbling.

Tick-Tock

2010-06-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

I love the days when my home is opened to the world. The sights and sounds steep in the living room, becoming a concoction of children's exclamations, idling engines, and the ever present chirping of the birds; the chorus of life.

There has been so much activity as of late, not least of which is a retinue of could-be boyfriends that never were. I seem to collect broken hearts like postcards to be placed in some unused drawer. Sometimes there is a discussion, other times they merely fade into the background to become apparitions of memory.

And there have been celebrations. Exaltations to life. My birthday is approaching (tomorrow, actually) and I am eagerly anticipating a quiet dinner with my parents before the chaos of the weekend celebration with friends ensues. The quiet before the storm, as they say.

My fingers itch for the camera, I am certain my creative spirit is once more making its way to the surface, peeling back the layers to emerge after metamorphosis. I am excited for the possibilities.

The rest, well it is static in the background - the regimented daily tasks that seem to never end.

I am awaiting a revisionist dream.

Ambiguous

2010-06-20T19:02:00.000-07:00

I have an innate tendency to analyze everything to exhaustion.

I dissect every word, every action, and examine the inner workings of meaning before putting it back together again, hastily stitched up.

I think it may be a defense mechanism, an earnest attempt not to be blindsided by unexpected surprises. Of course, the realist in me knows that this is impossible. Yet, I persist.

It makes it somewhat difficult to approach the ambiguities in life with any amount of ease. Dating, of course, is a complete odyssey.

After a rather heart-wrenching break up, I didn't date so much as I had a series of romantic flings. Testing the waters so to speak. After, I grew disenchanted and stopped dating altogether. This summer, I opted to emerge from my shell and experience the ups and downs with equal zest.

I think it has been more down than up, but sometimes that is the nature of the beast. My own hopes and fears tend to muddy the waters. I am working on seizing the moment for what it is, not for what it could be down the road. It is difficult.

As I said, I dislike uncertainties. But, c'est la vie. With uncertainties can come both unwelcome and pleasant surprises alike.

I hope there is a welcomed surprise around the corner.

Deja Vu

2010-06-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

There is nothing like emotional turmoil to spark a creative fire within me. It's all so complicated and... not at the same time.

I twist my innards into knot-like balloon animals, a perennial party favorite.

I broke it off with someone I had been seeing recently. I hate being responsible for the hurt in someone else, especially in such a tender spot.

And there has been an endless array of socializing, which might seem like a luxury problem to some, but being the hermit crab that I am, my first instinct is to duck inside my shell and scuttle off. It takes a lot of energy to remain smiling, effervescent, engaged.

so I am tired. But perhaps it is the sort of fatigue one might experience after a healthy run.

I also started seeing someone rather quickly afterwards. It was an explosion of unexpected effortless connection, full of open giving without forethought. Now that the dust has settled, today is a reflection upon the past three days... and beyond.

I am listening to Embers by Young Galaxy, a song that seems to reflect the mood aptly. "...there is a ghost train running through my head... I'm afraid I've lost my way... and it's always out of reach"

Some old insecurities have been reanimated in the Frankenstein laboratory that is my head space; crackling fresh with electric life.

The new boy reminds me in a lot of ways of someone in my past. And it scares me. My heart aches in familiar places, the stitches splitting just when I thought things had been sewn together again. He is so unlike me: effortlessly making friends and admirers wherever he goes. It makes me uneasy, like the bottom is ready to fall out at any second and the whole mystique that surrounded me will be pulled aside and he'll see the unimpressive wizard behind the shroud.

I can't see what he could see in me. I suppose that is the million dollar question.

And it happened so fast, before we could possibly know one another, just as it did with someone years before. The steadfast following of the capricious winds of my heart, to potential disaster. I am always in fear of being shipwrecked on some rocky shore; too concerned at planning for disaster to actually plot a course to avoid it.

For now I will be scuttling on distant shores, clacking my claws together in time with music heavy with cumulous clouds.

Sorting it all out.

affirmation

2010-06-09T06:44:00.000-07:00

The morning is a long yawn. My limbs are reluctant to move as they reorient them to time and space. It was one of those dreams, the dreams (or nightmares) that make you forget where you are. A little alarming at first, but otherwise no casualties.

Outside, already, the World spins on its axis. Cars humming to and fro on their way to work, an intermittent hammer that seems to mimic the slow start I am having to the day.

There was freshly squeezed orange juice and a pep talk to emerge from the warmth of the comforters, promises of yogurt and fresh organic raspberries that await.

Today, I am going thrifting, dropping some forms off at my alma mater and taking my camera to document it all. It's been far too long and I've spotted far too many things as of late that make me say "if I only had my camera...".

Yesterday I wear a little heavily on my shoulders, a sort of heavy feeling in my chest. But, time (and perhaps a delicious find at the thrift store) will help ease that burden.

The sun is shining, the birds are singing. There will be music from the ipod to energize my day, all will be well.

all will be well.

Sad Panda Face

2010-06-08T21:07:00.000-07:00

today i learned that being the one who breaks off a relationship can be just as difficult as the one who is broken up with.

it hurts to know you've caused someone else pain, even if ultimately it was the right thing to do.

i feel about two feet tall. boo.

scrambled

2010-06-07T21:55:00.000-07:00

The frantic pace of life has become a whirlwind of social activities. There is so much to say and I want to say it with artfulness, but I'm afraid I am overwhelmed by the sheer volume.

I suppose the highlight was a birthday celebration for my best friend. We dined at La Belle Vie (french fries with curry bearnaise, polenta-crusted prawns with mustard remoulade, sauteed soft-shelled crab with avocado, curry, and piperras peppers, and warm goat cheese tart with tomato confit and tapenade vinaigrette) before meeting up with a few others at a rooftop bar that served strong drinks (dirty gin martinis) and prompted more than a few puffs of German cigarettes (disgusting occasional vice). We then retreated to the W hotel bar and sampled artisan cheeses before eventually succumbing to the fatigue of our mutual revelry.

Amidst all this social chaos, I have been seeing someone. And it's left me in something of a dither. Why are adult relationships so complicated and convoluted?

so mostly today was about repose. tomorrow will undoubtedly be an active and (hopefully) productive day.

autocatalytic

2010-06-01T09:32:00.000-07:00

Today, there seems to be a frenetic pace to things: a constant cacophony of activity that I grumbly woke up to. The lawn mower outside my window, the bevy of cars racing by, the construction work. It was all so invasive, not at all how I imagined waking up.

I suppose it is the nature of things. The World holds it's breath for a day of remembrance and when it exhales, it is a torrent of to-do's.

I have a lot of say, but I feel more compelled to do, caught up in the buzz. So I will earmark it for later.

But I'll leave you with a picture I took yesterday, one that seems pretty relevant given the state of affairs today. Somedays, it seems we are all just ants, finding our way through this World, simultaneously exploring and working, but never quite simply resting.

From bulb to bloom

2010-05-30T19:31:00.001-07:00

my blog is having a crisis of identity. I enjoyed the potential of a Ginsberg-book feel, but it seemed to shrink the font or mash it together in unpredictable ways - that and I had a bunch of links to restore, etc. etc. ad nauseum...

but this was supposed to be a tale of living...

of a city lit by moonlit and the laughter of two friends, of walking barefoot in mad-made creeks, of dancing around stately fountains, and of secrets on the marble steps of the public library shared just before dawn peeked over the horizon.

of a banquet table filled with familiar faces, of shared niçoise salad and carrot cake, of champagne-coloured laughter and stories to shorten the distance that time had momentarily separated us all by.

of lush, overgrown gardens that was a virtual hug of greenery, a place where childhood whimsy and mystery were reproduced; the idea of a world that consumes us all and we cannot help but bend it to our imaginations.

of shared pizza and stories amidst the continuing litany of to-dos in life: laundry, errands, cleaning - the sheer unglamorous nature of it all made comfortable by the presence of sharing it with an old friend

mere snapshots of a life in bloom

2010-05-28T19:13:00.001-07:00

today, I spent the afternoon moderately helping clear a garden - a feat in itself since I don't garden. Granted, most of the afternoon I was "supervising" on some patio furniture nestled underneath a white birch tree, sipping white wine.

the most amazing thing about this garden was that it was a wild collection of shrubs, a koi pond, blooming trees; a veritable Secret Garden come to life. And I sat with my toes skimming the cool ground, long blades of grass spreading apart only to waver back in place, I realized how much I loved the garden, overgrown as it was. It had a nostalgic childhood whimsy when the world seemed to tower over us, around us and there were discoveries around every corner.

there are evergreen-like shrubs that form a sort of natural doorway down the stone steps to the lower garden, or the gentle buddha statue with hands clasped in prayer residing over the waterfall into the koi pond below - replete with lotus and long reeds of green. but my favorite was the neglected side garden with it's dingy stone birdbath and covered bench nearly taken over by blooming tree with beautiful pink flowers. there can be something decidedly romantic about decay, the gradual aging of beloved material things

the whole time I sat beneath the white birch tree, i thought how apropos it was, being there in that moment, because it seemed a greater analogy for my life blooming once again, teeming with new discoveries; the rediscovery of some forgotten things.

We Stopped at Perfect Days

by Richard Brautigan

We stopped at perfect days

and got out of the car.

The wind glanced at her hair,

It was as simple as that.

I turned to say something -

2010-05-21T06:21:00.001-07:00

today there is rain in the air, a spring rain. the kind that wants to cling to things, a constant apparition in the air. damp.

somewhere, in the distance, the distorted tin warble of the ice cream truck renders out its familiar melody; a bit too early for any customers I'd imagine. the day, after all is just beginning.

the ignition of an engine, the constant thrum of traffic on the roads (denoted by the occasional shoosh of a tire sliding through a puddle), the impossible loud grumble of a bus, exhaling and screeching at various points along the way.

such is the symphony of the day.

for a moment i simply drink it up, nestled in a mountain of comforters. a yawn, a stretch and then it begins.

2010-05-20T13:43:00.001-07:00

i am beginning to discover my neighborhood.

i can't say that i love it, just yet, but it is growing on me.

there are tree lined streets, homes from the 60s, perhaps 70s, a neighborhood convenience store run by a family of Middle Eastern decent. It is eclectic, a gathering of different walks of life that I might not have had the opportunity to co-mingle with.

at first, i loathed it. the noise, the seeming perpetual chaos of comings and goings, the unpolished image it presents. but, now i find myself stopping, as i fold my laundry, to eavesdrop on the Spanish news program the neighbor is listening to on his patio (not that I know Spanish). or the fact that I don't mind being awoken in the morning by the laughter of children from the adjacent day care center.

it seems somehow rich in ways that the sterile manicured neighborhoods and pristine shopping centers of the suburbs fail to comprehend.

and i have to say, i am becoming quite fond of this daily anthem

a needed boost

2010-05-06T14:33:00.000-07:00

sometimes, when the clouds roll in and there is thunder approaching, it is hardest to strive to find the sun, to remind myself that this, too, shall pass.

Messenger

by Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird -

equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me

keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be

astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart

and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

that we live forever.

stumbling and fumbling

2010-05-03T21:13:00.000-07:00

the watery remainder of day

sinks down the drain,

the flapping of sparrow wings

in the ribcage,

translucent and frenzied,

beating out the passage of time

in gasping pauses

unsteady confessional

2010-05-03T00:58:00.001-07:00

so much of what has transpired these past three (four) years is a testament to my stubborn refusal to listen to the World, to see the opportunity in each moment, each decision - even if they were not my own.

there are a lot of regrets, a lot of poor choices i have made in an effort to escape the painful reality of my situation. i went down roads i would have never dreamed myself capable.

but i am here, looking back, which i think is a testament to my strength and my perseverance and i need to honor that part of me, i need to recognize my tenacity (especially in moments i fear i have none) and i also need to pay tribute to the many people in my life that cared enough to stand by me

i have been mired in so much self-hatred when i needed an act of love and gentle forgiveness the most. i have spent so much time hiding from the world, fearing its course and sharp contours, the jagged edges and the subsequent spillage...

but i feel i am beginning to turn my gaze forward, tepidly hopeful at this juncture that there is something out there, waiting for me to grasp it and begin living and breathing, feeling and dreaming again.

i want to want again, to need to feel the hum of electric life coursing through my veins, to connect without fear of judgement, to radically accept that this is who i am right now and it is precisely where i am meant to be (even if it is not where i would like to be)

there can be grace even in the gritty reality that there is work to be done, in the shuddering sigh between the mind-numbing work that is required to find my way through this dense thicket and yes, there is liberation in taking the reigns of my life once more and fording the river that awaits

i never understood the words of this poem, "The Uses of Sorrow" by Mary Oliver

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift.

But I am beginning to... I am beginning to.

Curiouser and Curiouser

2010-05-02T22:23:00.000-07:00

"I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!"

Curiouser and Curiouser

2010-05-02T22:22:00.001-07:00

'I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!'"

Permanent Press or Delicates?

2010-04-24T14:23:00.000-07:00

I am trying to coax some words to the surface, poke and prod them from the shadowy corners. They are willful, stubborn and, above all else, reluctant.

The creative well is bone-dry.

Instead, I am doing laundry, hoping a sudsy poem will emerge smelling of linens and april showers - something definitely involving the tumble cycle. Life feels a bit tumultuous, a myriad of things tossed together.

I realize far too many items are hand-wash only; I'm not entirely convinced that isn't a metaphor either.

2010-04-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

another day with the sky robed in grey.

there are equal samplings of caffeine and pourquoi pas moi jazz. there is stubborn refusal of the words to be shepherded to the page, hushed stillness before the sky crackles open with rain, faded sidewalk art drawings slipping away in ribboned rivulets of water, and the hearty comforts of cauliflower soup.

i anticipate something spectacular is about to happen

2010-04-13T02:37:00.000-07:00

On days such a these, when the clouds hang heavily like ink blots on a cantankerous canvas, I feel transported to the pages of some yet unwritten piece of gothic literature.

The stories always begin on cloudy, storming days when the thunder claps tremble to the very foundations and lightning illuminates the shadowy corners of our mind long enough to stir age-old fears from their resting places.

I revel in the awakening of the docile sky, the landscape made into slick, sleek surfaces, the clattering and chattering of raindrops on pavement...

Today will be a lesson in indulgence, reveling in the quiet moments that all-too often pass by unnoticed in the daily busywork of living. There is left over pad thai (leftovers are a rainy day must), a collection of poetry and words bursting from their bindings on the bookshelves, and a peppering of guilty television indulgences that await.

Quake

2010-03-27T20:49:00.000-07:00

there are tremors

so violent

my tin filling rattles

until I am humming

such a porcelain pitcher am I.

Procession of the Magi

2010-02-22T23:18:00.001-08:00

It begins like one might start any ordinary New Year's resolution.

I resolve to be more open about my feelings

Although, in my head, it rings with an aluminum hum. It feels forced.

But I can't really begin these kinds of stories with a note about how I don't feel myself. That's not how it is done. I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't feel myself. But it's not as though I woke up one morning to find the face staring back in the mirror was not my own. That's the stuff of Hollywood films, the whole Freaky Friday Bodysnatcher scenario.

But, it happened none-the-less.

And suddenly the vocabulary isn't so much my own. The edges are duller, the precipices steeper. The conflation of your and you're becomes sloppier. And I no longer have a word for what I'm going through because, when I open my mouth, rounded edges come tumbling out, like spaghetti-o's.

Here is where sense used to be. A bento box of reasoning.

So, instead of, I resolve to be more open about my feelings, there is an echo, a haunting howl of wind, a rusted skeleton key, a handful of forget-me-knots.

And in the dull reverberation of the evening there is a realization that one day it will all make sense - a verse, an exaltation, a hymn.

Roadmap

2010-02-03T08:52:00.000-08:00

words are

Earthquakes.

These days my hinges creak a bit. Dust has settled into the corners.

To say I've been a bit lost would be fair.

There is a hollow ring to what I have to say, as of late. The wind fills such crevices and speaks in tongues.

I am currently fortifying with Richard Brautigan.

(I shall tell you a secret. I grow nervous when I read the words but nothing stirs inside my soul as it once did. "What does that mean?" crows loudly in my skull.)

There Is Darkness on Your Latern

by Richard Brautigan

There is darkness on your lantern

and pumpkins in your wind,

and Oh, they clutter up your mind

with their senseless bumping

while your heart is like a sea gull

frozen in a long distance telephone

call.

I'd like to take the darkness

off your lantern and change the pumpkins

into sky fields of ordered comets

and disconnect the refrigerator telephone

that frightens your heart into standing

still.

Back? Maybe.

2009-11-02T11:59:00.000-08:00

Has it been so long?

It is hard to believe. But, it has.

Autumn begins to crumble underfoot already. Where has the time gone?

I'm not even entirely certain I am back, whatever that entails. I'm not entirely sure that this fits, really.

Let sleeping dogs lie

At least that is what the fibers in my chest hum, struck chords reverberating until I shudder. I feel I've listened to such melodies for far too long. My voice cracks and peels in such desolation.

So, here I am.

Outside the foliage shimmers underneath the sun, aquarium dream shadows dancing across the curtains. A truck rumbles by, its girth bemoaning movement with a lurch of gears - always the mechanical chatter of automobiles these days. Here.

I began reading Snake-Back Solos by Quincy Troupe today - "Ash Doors and Juju Guitars" . The words were filled with deep roots and the smell of charred wood; they conjure and dance.

I purchased the book from a store that smelled of dust, wood varnish, and age. "Pat", to whom the autographed copy is addressed, left it behind for reasons unknown to find its place on my bookshelf. It lay dormant between Tony Sanders and Natasha Trethewey in a half-baked alphabetizing attempt that grew too tedious for completion.

Until now.

It seems somehow fitting to be resurrected on a day such as this.

On a day when the world seems to be stirring.

2009-09-04T17:00:00.000-07:00

These sounds belong to antiquity

To the tin daguerrotypes stored away in forgotten drawers,

aged tea-stained lace,

the memories in glass jam jars collecting dust;

to the unsent love letters,

chilly sunsets with autumn in the air.

Handle with care.

Fragmentation

2009-09-01T06:31:00.000-07:00

I want to tell you a story. But I'm afraid it will sound desperate (it is). Afraid you will know that I have told this story via text, email, face-to-face conversation, postcard, and status updates to everyone before (I have). Afraid that the words will lack luster, fall permanently on their face, will laugh at inappropriate times (they will).

I read esoteric poems about Mondrian. I listen to bands with names longer than this sentence. I smile crookedly. I dream of stolen bicycles and lazy bureaucracies. I search it out knowing it will only hurt me. I log on to a personal site only to be disappointed that hungboi is horny and knows nothing about Richard Brautigan or cultural relativism. I stare at edgy art. I conjure flotsam like a shaman and encourage it to mingle.

And still, still it is not enough. It barely skims the surface. It apologizes for not being enough, even while it packs its bags and heads for the door. It is an empty apology.

The funny thing is, this is not a sad story. In fact, it's not much of a story at all. It's a wish-list. I will plant this someday and watch it sprout and blossom. I will marvel at its unexpected beauty. I will give it a name, a history. It will grow up and live in a townhouse that shares a common wall with an angry old man. His name may be Bob or James or Dean. The name, his face, will not matter.

You will call it at 2 a.m., drunk, and all you will get is voicemail.

This is just the way of it. And you will be compelled to understand.

Clamoring

2009-06-24T23:05:00.000-07:00

I cannot escape your shadow

The dulcet melody that rocks me to your shore

You.

Unraveling my mystery

until it is so much less than what once was.

Moon River

and the quiet desperation

of human connection.

Do you believe in ghosts?

So many love songs are drawn

to that which lacks.

2009-06-22T08:13:00.001-07:00

How I have missed this space.

Here, where I create a new language full of wind and flying words.

I ache for its downy comfort once more; the gentle embrace of retreat in sight and sound.

The past already flocks at the door, vying for attention. To start there would be misleading.

Already the clothes it wears has become ragged, moth-eaten, torn asunder.

No, one must begin anew. At the rising of the day, the subtle smell of possibility hanging in the blooms.

Yes, that shall do nicely.

2009-03-19T08:44:00.000-07:00

is it provocative for a man to talk of having a womb?

mine is barren.

hollow husk

tarp bird; flap-less wings.

is it peculiar for a woman to talk of having seed?

the demilitarization of language.

pollen stained fingertips;

remnants of honey upon Autumn's lips.

these days my head is filled with the turnabouts of postmodern American poetry.

the idea no longer becomes the idea but is a conduit becoming "the idea"...

abstraction:fabrication

fabrication:creation

decoration

elevation

(do you see the pattern?)

2009-03-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

A flickering light bulb inside a small closet, a fanatic's prophecy, a plate shattering on linoleum, a rusted Ferris wheel creaking in Autumn breezes... these are all my deflated words seem to offer. Limp and impotent they hang on the line to dry, feasting on whatever sun is foolhardy enough to cross their path.

Oh such fortunes I have dropped down these wells. Clang, clang, clang. Straight to the bottom they go.

I faithfully recorded the colliding of distant stars and divined my future in the after-glow.

Still, nothing.

The needle scratches on the vinyl and I think I hear the distraction. I phone a friend and name it - giving it a history, legs, and a winsome smile. It crackles like crinoline and static.

Dusk flees in the wake of such chaos.

I must shriek.

2009-03-06T07:36:00.000-08:00

It will begin as a carousel of sound: the sustained hum of piped organs, a cacophony of laughter, the harmonics of childhood...

or perhaps it will merely be a blur of light and sound, the rapidly turning of gears, the repetitive upward and downward motion of going nowhere and somewhere at the same time...

or maybe that is not how it will start at all. There could be looming white birch, the unsettling thought of being along amongst shuffling leaves and a quickly setting sun. The faint smell of stirred earth beneath your feet.

The constant are the clouds, blooming like flowers against a backdrop of baby blue wallpaper.

Update

2009-03-05T10:24:00.000-08:00

The past few days I have been waiting.

I am not quite sure what I have been waiting for, but I know it is out there and I will know it when it arrives.

Until then I will eat mashed potatoes with too much butter and read postmodern American poetry in bed.

The end.

Random

2009-02-21T05:40:00.000-08:00

These days I find myself craving the small imperfections of life: the worn warble distorting tape recorded songs, the clumsy conflation of you're and your, and the streaky aftermath of freshly washed mirrors.

Today I awake to the world transformed beneath a fresh blanket of white. It clings to the branches of pine trees and coats the barren limbs of shrubbery alike, creating something of a postcard effect of what someone in Hollywood might imagine the snow to look like.

My comforters remain tousled, much like my hair.

There is serenity in this moment, a quiet reflection stilled in the very air.

I feel compelled to write.

2009-02-10T05:46:00.000-08:00

Dew drops of February

by J. Harmeling

The days I find it the hardest to roll out of bed usually involve sunless mornings and the bitter howl of wind. Although, seeing as how it is February and we're experiencing an unnaturally early thaw, I really can't complain... all that much.

I'm finding it hard to reach the words I once so easily plucked from some unspoken, unmapped place. It could be due to the fact that socializing has taken a front seat in my world, which is something of an oddity to me, the perennial wallflower.

Today, I am going to meditate, steep some green tea and set down and write. I feel that this early thaw is indicative of the symbolic thaw of my soul, the freeing of my heart from the bondage of pain and suffering. It is a small step to leading a healthier, happier life.

And I know I have, as of late, probably been sounding very self-help. But I suppose it is somewhat appropriate, being as I am, in fact, helping myself reach the surface of the watery graveyard I have so long trudged through.

Today I am going to reconnect with myself. Embrace my solitude as a time of peace and awakening, a revival of my creative spirit. Letting go of the world of appointments and social engagements long enough to take a deep breath and reinvigorate.

Recovery

2009-02-08T08:52:00.001-08:00

You remember the old ways, the neural networks that splinter off wildly like bare branches in winter. The inky shadows and the dusty corners of dimly-lit rooms. The gathering rumble of storm clouds.

It may seem like a distant echo, but you feel it still stir in the womb of your heart. An unwanted pregnancy.

But you chose to live. Even as they pumped you full of pills, until your mind became an untethered helium balloon, willing to follow any capricious direction.

But you choose grace. The delicate embrace of love without fear, truly without boundaries.

And your nightingale spirit finally mends its broken wing and takes flight, soaring higher than any pill could have taken you.

Purposefully Patient

2009-02-06T04:22:00.000-08:00

The irony of stumbling across the quote, "Patience is the art of hoping" by Luc de Clapier is not lost on me. I let the hanging letters enshroud my heart in a cocoon to nurture and grow.

For so long hope has been a foreign word to me, a part of a language I had no voice for, the hapless lolling of my tongue in my mouth so impotently. But inside my heart glowed like a shadeless light bulb, raw and incandescent.

The art of patience is not one that comes easy to me. I crave the immediacy of results, the comfort of outcomes and certain forecasts of the future. I am so eager to spill it all out of the bucket, only to mop up the mess later. If only I had walked slower, noticed the divots and steep inclines...

With an easy breath that inflates these lungs, separates the pleura, ingesting molecules of life-giving substance I begin to understand that hope is not about expectation but the lack of. The simple act of embracing life as it is and knowing that is precisely where it should be at this moment, in this hour, on this day. The patience of knowing, of wavering in the winds of change but never breaking.

Today my purpose is to embrace patience, embrace the care and understanding my body, soul, and mind needs.

The Secret Garden

2009-02-05T11:31:00.000-08:00

It begins slowly, the needle of the player drifting across record of you life.

You remember the withering cords of barbed wire, the leaky sounds of shadow that dripped from your fingertips and turned everything to dust. It was you, you were afraid of. The discordant untutored sound of your stumbling.

The smell of a Barbara Kruger print. The way the jagged edges came to represent your eyelashes. The words became your lips.

You used to love the heavy bottom of the sea. The silt slick with labels and names and cloistered hopes.

Then suddenly the tune stops.

And it is birds outside chirping, cars revving to life, crackling tinder of ice as it warms in the sun you hear. You pick the remaining nettles clinging to your jeans.

And you realize that the then of those tunes is now and your smile becomes electric, igniting the field around you with static.

The Universe has a Way

2009-02-02T09:34:00.000-08:00

I am beginning to understand the World has a plan. Not some grand design, but rather, a more causal plan. It's similar to Borges' Garden of Forking Paths.

Last night, in a fit of loneliness (I am struggling and striving to not feel as if alone has to be lonely, but can be fruitful solitude), I glanced out of my window and there was one star out in the entire night sky. It shined brighter, unfettered from the multitude of other stars in the sky. And I thought about how that expansive evening ceiling was similar to Life. In solitude we are not just another light... we become a beacon.

Conquering Hate

2009-01-30T03:20:00.000-08:00

Nothing stirs my soul, causes the blood to run cold in my veins, than a senseless act of violence and hatred. A Minneapolis woman was brutally attacked in a hate-crime and left unconscious on streets that I, myself, have walked. This community has always been something of a refuge, a city within a city; but that bubble was burst.

So yesterday night, bearing sub-zero weather, myself and seemingly hundreds of others marched the streets of Uptown, declaring in no uncertain terms that we will not be defeated by this. We will not be made to cower and we will once again reclaim these streets from two men who, in cowardice, sought to invoke fear within our hearts.

In a rousing cry of "We're here, We're queer, Get used to it!", we set off walking the path that the victim had walked. Beginning to heal the gaping wounds this attack has left not only on the LGBT community, but on the community of Uptown as well.

That night we met violence, hatred, and ignorance with the only thing strong enough to conquer them: solidarity in peace and love.

And as I snapped photographs of the seemingly endless train of people marching along side me, I couldn't help but feel honored to be a part of this march and to be surrounded by these people of compassion. I may not know their names, but my love for them and for the victim is great.

In the immortal words of Edmund Burke, "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing."

Nurturing

2009-01-29T11:32:00.000-08:00

I am going to... make a statement today.

I love... the idea of a song with the title, "Thank you, Mario but our Princess is in another castle"

I am watching... the sun spots gleam through the trees onto tousled comforters, like water ripples of light.

My source of inspiration today:

Keeping Things Whole

by Mark Strand

In a field

I am the absence

of field.

This is

always the case.

Wherever I am

I am what is missing.

When I walk

I part the air

and always

the air moves in

to fill the spaces

where my body's been.

We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.

I took... another fortune cookie because I didn't like the first fortune

I am allowing... myself an entire day in bed.

My fingers are itching... to take pictures tonight.

New

2009-01-27T10:14:00.000-08:00

Each morning

I peel back the rind

of yesterday, pulpy

reminders cram beneath

my fingertips.

The sun, visible on the

other side of the World

smells like citrus.

Good morning.

**************

My tongue has no shape for these words, having long since tasted the shadows. What do I expect to find here, in this garden of consonants and vowels? A language I never understood?

There are whispers of yearning in my patchwork soul, stitched up tight; a call to exaltation.

Days are filled with songbirds and free-style dancing. Pink plastic flamingos and red bicycles. There is a vibrant hum in the air that sounds like a sigh of relief. It creates a symphony of all the words I long to reach for.

"I am the happiest and healthiest I have ever been," will have to suffice.

Canary

2009-01-26T16:59:00.000-08:00

by Rita Dove

for Michael S. Harper

Billie Holiday's burned voice,

had as many shadows as lights,

a mournful candelabra against a sleek piano,

the gardenia her signature under that ruined face.

(Now you're cooking, drummer to bass,

magic spoon, magic needle.

Take all day if you have to

with your mirror and your bracelet of song.)

Fact is, the invention of women under siege

has been to sharpen love in the service of myth.

If you can't be free, be a mystery.

2009-01-12T08:53:00.000-08:00

Snow becomes sifted sugar, settling over the ground. The world becomes a blank canvas.

There is hot chocolate, disheveled blankets, cinnamon and spice oatmeal, and gentle whispers of song. Today I try and learn that solitude does not need to be loneliness, it can be a refuge of peace and reflection.

My stuttering heart remains open. Difficulties, too, can be a gift.

What can be learned in this hour, in this moment? What can be gleaned from the pang of a tendered heart? Who will I turn to when the road ahead remains blocked and realize the only one standing here is me?

A cold wind descends, but I am determined to let my sliver of heart hum and burn away the chill.

2009-01-10T14:12:00.000-08:00

I believe there is little in life that cannot be fixed with new music and a cup of hot cocoa.

2009

2009-01-06T16:51:00.000-08:00

I plan to skip more rocks. Leave anonymous notes in strangers bags like "I like your sweater, have a great day" or "Your smile made me smile". Buy a goldfish and name him Gill. Explore more doors that are marked "For Employees Only". Run through courtyards filled with pigeons. Entertain more possibilities. See a psychic once and look in her eyes and say "I know" and nod gravely. I will wear more yellow. Laugh until it is contagious. Offer more rides on a red tandem bike that has a bell and streamers. I will love a little more recklessly. Maybe not. I will love. I'll rearrange the alphabet so as to cause a momentary sense of confusion and panic across the English-speaking world. I'll sleep in gardens and watch fireflies like budding stars. I will catch this train and not the next one. I will splash in more puddles. I will play hopscotch down the sidewalk at least once. I'll light sparklers in the middle of the winter and remember sweltering July. I will use the word sweltering more. Stop collecting phone numbers and wounded hearts in my desk drawer. Go ice skating on a frozen lake. I will take on "Mr. Blue Sky" as my anthem for the year. I will drive a convertible over the speed limit and feel the wind and scenery blur by. I will dream of flying more often. I'll remember to bring a blanket to the movie in the park this summer. I'll believe in magic. I'll ask people to tell me a story more often. I'll tell myself the world happens when my heart aches. I will go to the dentist more and ask for lollipops or a sticker after my appointment.

I just will more.

2009-01-04T20:15:00.000-08:00

Someone has put a coin down my gullet and I spark and sputter to life, my creaky limbs animating themselves into something of a walk. The red light in my chest hisses, coils of smoke rising up into my chest as dust burns off in brightness. My hinged lips open and close, until something of a hum resonates from the radio in my throat. Quite possibly it is a folk song of red breasted robins.

A crowd gathers. There is hesitant applause, uncertain but inquisitive gazes. A young child reaches up to tug on the hem of her mother's blue linen skirt, asking if it is magic. The mother pauses a moment, "I'm not sure" she responds. A man in the crowd remarks in amazement how lifelike it all seems. There are nods around him.

Wind picks up and dust stirs into the air.

A brazen passerby clambers onstage and touches my face. "It feels real". I nod and he blanches, quickly climbing back into the crowd.

Slowly, the song comes to an end. The vibrant red light dims and my limbs stop, suspended as if frozen in time. My eyes shutter closed and stillness is once again returned.

The crowd disperses.

The dust settles.

2008-12-26T20:21:00.000-08:00

In my heart right now I have:

pieces of broken china

an old rusty key

some unraveled thread

a lithograph print

a songbird

It's always the same.

The Achilles heel of the armor

you took such care to weld as indestructible.

And even as the runes were cast,

foretelling cumulous clouds and swollen lakes,

you still drew maps to familiar places and set out.

You would do it again, even pierced with these arrows.

Because you know it's all you can do to hold on.

2008-12-21T07:07:00.000-08:00

I want to linger beneath the covers a little longer, having already read a few chapters of Little Fugue by Robert Anderson.

It's the snow. Or so I say.

Last night, veritable buckets were poured on our doorstep, resulting in a winter wonderland that clings to my window, partially blocking my view of the hills and valleys of white that blanket the world.

It is hard to fathom that each snowflake is unique, faced with such abundance. Or perhaps that was a story my parents told to assuage my fears of being different and I never thought to learn otherwise. Or the movies.

I'd be bitter, if I could. But two hospital stays have afforded me only one option: to smile. And so I stir my hot chocolate, nibble on some orange slices and thoughtfully plan out my day, craving a morsel of connection that will sustain me for the long hours of the afternoon.

There is writing. Yes, there will always be the words colliding together inside my head and making sense of one another somehow. I long for starlings in my poems these days.

And cleaning. My bathroom bore the brunt of my voracious craving to circumvent idle hands. The plastic bristles gouging against the tile, the porcelain, leaving sudsy devastation in its wake until the whole room smelled of nothingness. The sterile smell of clean.

I'm sure that it means something. It all means something.

If only I could uncover what.

2008-12-18T12:39:00.000-08:00

I always fear the turning of the page. The crowded words flocking together like blackbirds.

This was once an omen.

And I, a poppet only half equipped to battle such epochs, so willingly gave my strings to someone else.

My face wears a days worth of stubble, grainy sand upon an otherwise smooth surface. It is the churning gears beneath which reveal the most.

But it's my face that catches the most fish. Netted, they flop against me, and each time I release them, I so desperately want them to come back.

If only I could be inside out.

I am certain I have a highway in here, somewhere

Creation

2008-11-07T09:58:00.000-08:00

There was a downpour of rum late in the evening until I exploded outward from my container. My lips could not move fast enough, so I hummed all I had to say to the beat of a reluctant heart. Faster, faster until I was electric, sparking, repelling and attracting all at once. I became.

In the morning I awoke to fire and water. Droplets backlit by a weary sun transformed into ethereal messengers of November's secrets. And the ombre leaves, emblazoned upon rusty branches of a solitary shrub that has, even now, refused to be robbed of its plumage.

The blood curdles in the approaching prickling winds of winter. Today will require shrink-wrapping in thermals, the rough texture of woolen things. Midwest autumns are not for the faint of heart, they were born of lumberjack flannel. Fastidious masochists, we are. We must. I must.

To dispel all that has trespassed into my life, the detritus of a broken heart mended and torn asunder into a thousand apologies and forget-me-not, I burn from the inside. These ashes are dispersed and color the sky grey, fireflies of dust to be caught in someone else's ray of hope.

2008-11-06T12:37:00.000-08:00

by me

I always have the most profound thoughts at the least opportune times, never a pen nor paper near. And I don't think I could abide a tape recorder. The sound of my own voice embarrasses me.

It is glacial in the house today. Me, wrapped in a horrendously ugly, but warm and enveloping, floral duvet. It's something of a site to be seen, I am sure.

I've run out of the blue pills to quiet the disquiet, so the gears are grinding against themselves with constant motion. The thoughts start as a drip and then, soon, become a deluge. Thankfully, the white pills keep them satisfied and happy, hold the shadows of depression at bay.

The cold of the house makes it difficult to unravel myself from bed. So I spent much of the morning, still reading Marge Piercy, and doodling in my journal.

a shimmer first

water then light

winding through rusted junkyard

remains of trees,

fire pooling at their feet

It was fairly spectacular. Me, half-asleep, and the way the sun peeked out from behind cloud-cover long enough to ripple across my bed, as though one was at the bottom of the pool, looking up into a sunny sky. If it had a sound it would be gentle windchimes, a faint twinkle of motion stirring and then silence once more.

Today reminds me.

I don't remember much, but what I do remember seems surreal.

It remains too sharp to write, but I know its time is coming. I can feel it in the cooling air. With everything laid bare, it will part the dormant soil and spring up when I least expect it. Then, and only then, will I be able to detail it. Run my fingers over its grooved indentations, steady my ears to its raucous meaning. Say the words which my tongue has no shape for.

Until then, the litany of my days will have to do.

2008-11-05T18:18:00.000-08:00

Untitled

by me

Today is quiet. It seems like a day torn from the pages of Goldilocks not too...(insert the adjective of your choice)

That isn't to say, things have been slow. The jubilation of last night has given way to the realization that life does indeed churn on. Perhaps there is a collective sigh of relief in the air, an unburdening of things carried too long on strained backs. Whatever it is, has left me humbled and without words.

I could tell you of my day with paperwork, deferring my student loan payments as my school recommends I recover for the year from my long, hard-fought battle with clinical depression. I could bemoan the state of bureaucracy when it comes to a speeding ticket and being passed from office to office, sometimes half-way across town.

But it doesn't seem relevant. It is filler and stand-in for something larger happening behind the scene. I am not quite sure what that is, but it leaves me with hope and optimism. I feel, in many ways, I have at last seen my reflection, unhaunted by apparitions of the past or clouded by murky, densely forested futures.

What seems important is that I spent the later part of my afternoon, nestled beneath some comforters, under a sky of cloudy grey that had faint whispers of winter in the air, reading Marge Piercy and remembering the flavor of words.

2008-11-01T04:37:00.000-07:00

wishful thinking

by me

To bear a sunken galleon day like this one I need: one oversized second-hand sweater, a distant twinkling star that someone across the world has wished upon, a pocket full of sparrows (in case I wish to take flight), a skeleton key to forgotten places, a warm cup of cocoa, and the clattering of keyboard keys.

Yes, that shall do. Until my words recover from their month-long hang-up, hang-over. A picture from my walk yesterday will have to do.

2008-10-30T10:04:00.000-07:00

monolith

by me

I woke up this morning with a dream rolling beneath the sheets. Not in a salacious way, mind you. More like a churning, like the making of butter. It tried to speak me, but I don't know Finnish.

Perhaps it spoke of blood clots on the gnarled capillaries of skeletal trees? Of stepping into a Rembrandt painting, spinach green, with bean stalk shadows?

Whatever it was, I couldn't understand. These days I only see things in yellow light and wool crepe suits.

Buffer

2008-10-29T21:58:00.000-07:00

dreaming

by me

We will always have pre-dawn walks home and skeleton keys in our pockets. Chirping sparrows and sunlit swing-sets. The flocking of gold on bespeckled windows and irises on peeling windowsills.

There is gravel here still yet. Do you remember?

Checking-In

2008-10-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

Poetry

by me

Sometimes, World, the words just don't surface.

A Flocking of Dream

2008-10-15T04:17:00.000-07:00

This is the second installment of a media art piece by Cao Fei entitled, "Whose Utopia". I saw it as part of an exhibit at the Walker Art Museum a year ago. It absolutely blew me away in mind, body, and spirit.

It is visual poetry, beautifully haunting as if one is swaddled in a cocoon of someone else's dream. Unable, or perhaps, unwilling to wake up. It speaks so keenly to me at this moment, I had to share.

Son of Man

2008-10-14T20:37:00.000-07:00

I imagine, if I had enough creative-spirit, a poem might begin talking about the language of punctuation, the symbolism of stand-in ellipses, billowing fortresses of exclamation points; the substance of an after-thought. Ideas would bloom on windowsills with peeling-paint. The words themselves would be meaningless: hapless idols; incidentals to a collision of thought and sound. Newspaper skirts would be recalled for their volatile flammability. Egg-shell plaster walls would splinter, crack, and a white-browed scrub robin would emerge. There would most certainly be cumulous clouds involved.

But, I don't and it's not.

There are only wringing hands, the sharp twang of a plea for courage and light.

My mind is furious aglow, luminol for long ago scars which serve to remind me that the past has, indeed, happened.

In these Hobbesian imaginations, my apparitions are compounded.

On my tip toes

2008-10-10T00:49:00.000-07:00

astral projection

by me

August haunts me with November, a held-

hug longing for leaf weather

& hot black tea steeping

while the clawfoot

drains back into its silly shape.

-selection from A Ghost As Kings of the Rabbits

by Joshua Marie Wilkinson

Starlight in Our Eyes

2008-10-08T00:39:00.000-07:00

detritus

by me

These days are filled with the insolvency of birthday candles and dead-bolted wooden doors, the irrationality of permanency, orchestral sunrises and evenings that half-commit, blue note wonderment, and ancestral smoke signals.

I hear you calling, your voice like lamp-light in the dark decay.

I can only offer you the splintering miasma of dream and reality, the forlorn hum of my gravel filled heart.

Here. Here, in the sepia tone of words eager to serve, I become committed to the brashness of nonlinear lines, the sharp precipices of indentation and axiom. The way these roads circle round and round.

I cling to beginnings and lament their passing; a sound like leaves underfoot.

Proust, the worshipped Sun-God

2008-10-04T11:19:00.000-07:00

On days like this folk singers whisper about finches, children swim in pools of sun and leaves. Relics of conversation flirt with tendrils of hot chocolate, scarves wave goodbye in a late September breeze (it steals October's thunder).

We grow wings, even now.

The landscape is dotted with memory. Vermillion red for the boxes of impotent words I keep beneath my bed on creaky floors, incandescent yellow for childhood warnings like: don't talk to strangers and look both ways before crossing, and swatches of orange for the telegraph of thoughts, rippling across dusky landscapes.

Stitching pieces of the past, sinking, sinking...

They don't call it Fall for nothing.

Mutiny of Days

2008-09-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

Cynoglossum Omphalodes

The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 1

Today I am the eight of swords,

a misfired glottal stop,

ashes of water amongst sand,

a duplicitous bride in white.

The stalk of my hilt wilts in such heat,

this is rhododendron news,

(a fornication of breached omens).

2008-09-28T22:50:00.000-07:00

A color comes in

to me, a return ---

looking around from

the same spot

on the porch,

something on

fire & harmless.

selection from A Ghost As King of the Rabbits

by Joshua Marie Wilkinson

"Fall from Grace"

by me

There is grace here yet. Perhaps in the way the sun saddles the rolling horizon, the morning fragrant with coffee and clinging tendrils of sleep. The refusal of dreams to give way, painting us into drafty corners. Images of lackluster coins, trembling rose bushes, incandescent blue lithographs. These, too, will mean something eventually. We will always have this language of symbols and sighs, cold winter mornings when the breath stops cold in our humming hearts. This ruddy give and take of fantasy and fiction.

In my dream last night, we stand around the old water well, dropping whispers into the deep. You are there. And you. Releasing red satin ribbons into the noonday glare of the sun.

I want so much to show you what happens in the tight corners of my clenched eyes, the metallic electric taste of fear and hope, how they meld into one incongruent mass of colicky shadows. Here is where I sit, gazing into standing pools of water collected over the years, studying the ache of it. Floating on fumes.

Colors of Emotion

2008-09-24T10:44:00.000-07:00

"What a day for a daydream"

by me

Cottage Grove, MN

Soundtrack for an Autumn Walk:

Grapevine Fires - Death Cab for Cutie

Time On Your Side - Emily Jane White

Blue Skies - Jaymay

Out Come The Wolves - Jacob Golden

Please, Please, Please - The Smiths

Blue Flower, Blue Flame - Destroyer

Hospital Blossom - The Wailing Wall

Words/Phrases I am currently enjoying:

peristalsis

capsized

cadaverous corners

my Evangelist spirit

Trotskites

An old ghost of a e-mail now poem:

I grumble to life,

a vacuum pushed across pristine oriental rugs;

it is the empty act of doing.

The telephone is ringing off the cradle:

Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?

It too gives up.

I realize how I covet darkness:

the familiar to my incantations,

the spider of these webs.

I hold the silence and solitude in

my locket sized heart, peeking now

and again.

Such gifts are given in the most impotent ways,

the way its heart creases and folds,

the disembodied eyes and mouth.

For it, I always offer more than I can give.

New!

2008-09-23T07:19:00.003-07:00

In case you haven't noticed, I am changing the look of things around here. Please pardon the mess!

Passing Through

2008-09-22T06:34:00.000-07:00

I imagine today, if it rains, I will go out and walk. I will immerse myself back into the forgotten world and cradle the possible in my hand, gently.

Here is Joshua Marie Wilkinson reading Wolf Dust.

Prescription to Cure Disillusionment

2008-09-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

I am no longer the favorite child. The words slide off my ribcage, there is no mystery here. There are scorch marks in my core, the shape of irradiated apples. Singed, burned, shriveled up. I write the stillness of trees on concrete walls. Here. Here is the gritty dig of electric humming impotence; crude immodesty. I miss the poetry I gave to the girl who refills my cup of coffee.

I am trying to break through, somehow. Tying a tourniquet to stifle my creative spirit from bleeding out on the new carpet. It is ghastly business. Jagged fumbling.

Three books of poetry helping ease my pain:
1. Feign by Kristy Bowen
2. Rommel Drives on Deep into Egypt by Richard Brautigan
3. The Man Suit by Zachary Schomburg

My horoscope, as a film review:
L'eclisse (1962) ****
Director: Michaelangelo Antonioni
The Film: Emotional ennui was never so sexy or compelling as in this gorgeous, groundbreaking film. Wandering from the ruins of a businesslike love affair, a ravishingly distracted Monica Vitti strikes up an equally disengaged relationship with stockbroker Alain Delon. In the background, the city of Rome wheels, deals and aches for meaning.

Touches of the divine within my journal:
1. the train is my death calling, bright blue [I remain dubious I actually came up with this one]
2. I trade my bone marrow for lead
3. After the first time we had sex, he was cannonized in my heart
4. the ashes of a thousand apologies are dispersed with Pompeian explosions

One old poem by me, recovered from limbo:

There is a ghost
delivering a missive
I wrote twenty years,
before we met.
The drain dead stops
as I read it.
"You will break my heart."
These dull walls and
linoleum floors know my secret.
They whisper to one another at night.

A work of art I have seen and loved:

Ana Louis-Borzi

Weissman Art Museum

Minneapolis, MN

Oracle

2008-09-18T20:30:00.000-07:00

He doesn't want any songs about emancipation. Instead, he points to the prison bars of jagged scars on his wrist, claims that his soul has suffered the emotional equivalent of a heart attack. He shuffles his feet but goes nowhere, a wraith without direction, blown into the faintest breeze. He is seeking a spark of inspiration in the caldera of his past-lives, rooting through the tawny rust of antique hopes and dreams; rummaging, rummaging. Some may call it disambiguation; a search for the one word that would smooth the jagged edge of questioning. He cocks his head and listens to dripping faucets, each secret meeting an untimely end down the drain of the apartments he passes on the street. He claims he cannot hear the subsequent quiet gurgle of defeat. But, if that is true, why does he clench his jaw so?

I Heart...

2008-09-18T19:18:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Claire, for the nomination!

Seven blogs, hmm? What to do, what to do? I have to admit, I have a few blogs I check out on a (fairly) regular basis. Unfortunately, I'm not feeling an ounce of creativity in me bones, so the advertising may fall a bit flat - but (yes, there is a but!) don't let my sub-par shout out deter you, they are all amazing and wonderful for so many reasons.

1. Mimey. Full of delicious foggy vapors, it is a downed comforter on cloudy days. Her heart whispers secrets in a beautiful language I cannot quite place. Oh, yes, and she has a comic out called Ethel Sparrowhawk which should be snatched up tout de suite.

2. Sideon. "Light: the natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible. A person notable or eminent in a particular sphere of activity or place. A match or lighter that produces a flame or spark." I think that explains it. Brilliant and insightful.

3. Bee. My cosmic twin. Her tapestry of words are wings which I set flight upon. A gentle hand upon my shoulder as I stare into difficult things and, together, we emerge a stronger, better person.

4. Twitches. Politics and poetry, a dream come true. Be it a statement on policy or a poem so sharp it cuts to the core, her words rivet and provoke in the best of ways.

5. Dooce. I discovered this blog back in 2001 before I really had any clue about blogging. The sarcastic humor and unapologetic honesty kept me coming back. My favorite story of all times can be found here. Genius

6. Exhaust Fumes. His words intimidate me, in the best of ways. It is the blogging equivalent of the person sitting in the row of seats in front of you that you are convinced is too (insert adjective of choice here: cool, attractive, intelligent) to want to be your friend.

7. Siobhan. There is something in my heart that aches keenly when reading these words, a flicker of recognition and understanding that comes with traversing a difficult path. It is a snapshot of the beauty and hardships of life without pretense, told with an unmistakable wisdom and grace.

8. Claire. A smile embodied. Dancing in the park. These words are written in cursive on linen stationary, scented with the smell of Spring, i's dotted with hearts. The gentle dreams within me are stirred by her words. [I had to add this, even if it's against the rules]

Humble

2008-09-11T17:47:00.000-07:00

I like my music with melodies wafer-thin and vocals susceptible to wilting. Woolly Mammoth's Absence by Mt. Eerie will do nicely.

Tonight my room is candle-glow and a chorus of crickets, it has been so long since I've had my windows open to the World.

The air is damp with intermittent rain, tangible in the blanket of night that sweeps down swiftly in the early autumn months. It clings precariously to the surface of things: the bedside table, the soft down of hair on arms, and the passing thoughts that charter through my head.

As it begins to rain there is a soft hush of shivering leaves, gentle secrets traveling between shrubs and trees.

I strive, in writing, to connect this moment to a larger network of experience. The scholar in me desperately searches for a moral.

But the moment, stubborn in its simplicity, refuses to give way. Perhaps that is the lesson to be learned? That things may exist without reason, without purpose - save to be enjoyed and cherished, experienced and adored.

And I put down my pen to just listen.

Wanderlust

2008-09-04T15:17:00.001-07:00

It is the kind of moment that makes you tap your feet on a bus ride out of the state. You see the fields pass by until they become a blur of goldenrod, the air from the open window smells like hay and dust. Growing tired of seeing the past as a quivering lip, you packed one suitcase (the one with all the stickers and old polaroids of friends) careful to take your favorite orange sweater, a book of poems by Richard Brautigan, an ipod filled with restless songs, and $50 dollars. You set out on faith and the knowledge that anything has got to be better than this. In your hand is a one-way ticket to freedom - anywhere, USA. You've left a note full of all the sentimental clinging to the past and not-quite-adequate goodbyes. By morning, you will be hundreds of miles away from the person you once were. It will be terrifying, as only the strange contours of new can be. You will spend several nights on motel pillowcases moistened by the tears of regret. But one day you will wake up, the sun will be shining through threadbare curtains, and you will realize how desperately you want to see this new town when it snows.

"Veterans!" And other stories from the war on dating

2008-08-20T06:52:00.001-07:00

So, we agreed.

We are both attracted to emotionally unavailable guys. It is the thrill of the chase, the rush of success. The bitter before the sweet. You pawed at my arm to demonstrate the alternative, hung yourself limply from my shoulder. The verb cloying came to mind, we laughed.

We traded our dating war stories, sighed into our sake. A cigarette may or may not have been lit.

"It was so weird..." the story begins. There is an exchange of ideas. It was him. It was us. Always with our magnifying glasses. Always with the same incredulous sparkle in our eye. We are determined to unearth those ancient secrets buried in our own backyard. If one plus one equals. It is the rhyme to the reason and all the whys and what fors come tumbling out of our ears. This is where we excel. We examine the concave side first, make notations in the margin of its emptiness. We take out all the ducks and line them up in a row. Duck, duck, duck... goose!

"Gluttons for punishment," I suspected.

It makes sense. At least when we want it to. When he didn't walk with a slight uneven gait. Or slip his tongue past our lips too precipitously. Or wore too much cologne, or not enough. Or show his hand before we went all in and lost it all. It makes sense when nothing else does, when there is nothing noticeably wrong. When the only thing we have to show for ourselves is a shrug of the shoulders and an invisible bruise.

"He is a soggy forgotten kebab"

That, I imagine, is something we both can live with.

Selfish or Sell Fish

2008-08-19T15:21:00.000-07:00

I want to capture it all and say it eloquently, say it effortlessly. I want that moment, the one of you and I sitting outside, laughing. I want it to sing, to envelop, to sustain the marrow in my bones. I want to stop thinking about him, to stop waging this Cold War over and over. I want my friends to be Bollywood actresses and actors for one night, larger than life, singing classic Beatles songs in yellow leisure suits and fuschia minidresses. I want relief from this mid-day heat. I want to be confident enough so that when you say "hello", I will smile instead of blush. I want you to know the hurt in me, to examine the jagged contours of my faults, and love me anyway. I want this unanticipated fast of words and ideas to end. I want to be in a million places but remain grounded in the here and now. I want contradiction, the way it crackles to the surface and speaks in tongues. I want to bring you in close, clutch you to my chest, whisper secrets in your ear. I want to not regret doing the former. I want naps dappled with the afternoon sun. I want to learn how to name flowers and spell them correctly: like "bouganvalia" and "nostranium". I want depth of character that lives up to the namesake of depth charge. I want easy choices with certain outcomes. Or maybe I don't. I want red plastic sunglasses. I want the nausea to go away. I want heartfelt post-it notes. I want to stop trying to shed this skin. I want inspiration to strike daily and with force. I want to weather the storms and lift up mountains like umbrellas. I want reprieve or absolution. I want erudite conversation, or the opportunity to use the word erudite in conversation. I want an artistic and profound way to end.

Serenity

2008-08-07T20:44:00.000-07:00

Tonight, the charred smell of wood hangs in the air, conjuring smoke signals of camp fires. A symphony of crickets hum with a buzz of electric current, filling the darkened, star-speckled sky with music. This stillness is divinity, periodically broken in by a grumbling motor of a passing vehicle, only to be reclaimed by the painted hush once more.

I remember summers like these, propelled forward by the sound of laughter, the feel of slick dew-kissed grass beneath bare feet. These memories clamber in, seated amongst relics of childhood distanced now by time and experience. Days like these were measured by the slow-moving streams of the creek that splintered my Grandmother's yard in twain, or the time between dusk and the sudden illumination of street lights that cast a orange-yellow spotlight on the pavement below. Wooden glens were African jungles, backyards were rolling hills of distant country-sides. The world back then gave birth to the promise of possibility each morning which would later tuck me in at night.

I was so untouched by care, so unblemished with worry or stress, words that only recently begun to infiltrate my vocabulary. Tonight, however, belongs to the bygone days of youth. My heart swells with a thousand memories, ripened on the vine. Here exists rebirth, replenishment.

If you were here with me, I might turn and remark, "Isn't it amazing how, despite the endless expanse of the sky, we can remain so connected? So in tune with the world? Knowing that, anywhere, we could pinpoint the same stars?" There wouldn't be a need for a reply. The evening would have spoken already for us, posing the questions and answers with impossible clarity. We would span lifetimes of experiences in the blink of an eye, apparitions unearthed by the smell of August; in the way the air hangs for a moment, inspecting its surroundings, carrying with it the early promises of autumn.

Before I turn to head inside, I gaze up at the stars suspended in a velvet sky. I cast a wish to be reclaimed at a later date, perhaps with the sun high in the sky and woe on my shoulders. I bottle up this moment, cup it in my hands, and thrust it upwards...

watching it take flight along with an exhale of breath.

Fire and Smoke

2008-07-31T01:57:00.001-07:00

I begin this poem

with color.

Over-ripened plum.

Envision it as

the relics of

sausage fingers plying

the flesh of my thigh,

the subsequent creaking

of my legs splitting in two,

down the stalk of my body.

I paint the backdrop with

electric obscenities.

It is raining.

In lightning flashes of

stranger's grinning teeth

it is over.

Outside,

the water hisses

on hot grates.

A car door slams shut.

Struggling with Society

2008-07-24T20:54:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to write for several days.

In each instance, my mood shifted perceptibly to make what I wanted to previously say null and void. My words became too manic, too sullen, too hopeful, too hopeless. Goldilocks all over. It was too much or not enough.

Perhaps the block is more my own doing than anything circumstantial; an unease about the subject matter, the raw pink flesh of a scratch upon my soul.

Even now, resettled at home, the words lack a je ne sais quoi. Dressed more in cast off rags than the felicity of lace and pearls. Purely functional.

I guess I need some extra love. It's something I am never good at asking for.

On Wednesday I was out celebrating with friends at the Red Dragon. There was laughter, drinks, sesame chicken and Animotion playing on the jukebox.

I have been doing an intensive 7-day yoga cleanse, which has been amazing. I've worked on opening my heart and contemplating the energy I am sending out into the world. I've embraced my own awkwardness with an understanding that stumbling comes with learning how to walk again.

I understand that the World does not start and stop as I do. I also understand that just because I am sending out Hallmark greetings to the World it won't necessarily stop and ask how I am doing or thank me. Yet, I have to say, when I ran into a random homophobe on Wednesday, it did make me grit my teeth and sigh. It ruined my night. A little reprieve would be nice now and again. Granted, this came on the heels of spending my independence day at a conservative home that made me feel anything but liberated. Stonewall, for some people, never happened. So the sting is a bit sharper. The bite a bit deeper.

I realize that not everyone will like me. I've come to accept that ignorance is abundant. I want to ignore such happenings and not let it sink in, but it does and they do. It is the aggregate damage that has begun to weigh on me. I don't want to wear an armor forever around myself. I don't want to shoot first and ask questions later upon meeting strangers. I want to truly believe that I can cast off the fortress around my heart and let people in once more. But dammit it's hard when you come nose to nose with the ugliness of some people, an ugliness directed at who I am.

I am trying to be bigger than this moment, than these moments, but it is getting harder and harder. I don't want to be bitter. I don't want to be on my guard, ready to draw first blood at a hint of trouble. I don't want to be looking over my shoulder wondering if he, she, they will be the next to call me out, single me out, make me feel less than myself.

But then again, I don't want to have to be so stung again either.

Poem of the Moment

2008-07-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

I am sending this poem out in a bottle, hoping someone will read it, write down my location and send a search party for rescue. It contains hieroglyphics. The i's are dotted with miniature hearts. Its contents carry with it the regrets of the past two years. I hope it will float.

The Black Square She Wears

by Zachary Schomburg

In this play I wrote, a woman appears naked on stage. She has a black square painted on her bare stomach. She tries to convince the gentleman on stage that it is a painting of the two of them in a boat on a lake on a moonless night. This is you paddling from the stern she says. He sees nothing but a black square. Trees are blowing gently in the wind just below my ribs. She gestures to her ribs and starts crying. Silence fills the stage as he touches the painting with his finger. He gets on his knees to study it. A pirate enters.

Attitude en pointe dreaming

2008-07-20T07:42:00.000-07:00

I watch the cat stalk a bird in a nearby tree, its shrill angry cries sound like a rattlesnake; warning and frightened at the same time, fully aware of the predator in its midst. The cat paws and meows at the screen, embarrassed by its own impotence to kill, running from its secret shame. Somehow, it seems impossible that this all happens before 9:30 a.m..

My body aches, my muscles bruised beneath the soft flesh. It is day two of a seven day yoga adventure. My pitiful limbs unfold themselves into gangly shapes meant to appear effortless. Inhale, exhale. The idea is letting go, sinking into the moment and the stylized poses of some harmonic frequency I cannot discern. I fear the consequences of relinquishing my grip on Life, the subsequent unraveling and settling on the bottom of some frozen lake, fueling the legends of the Loch ness monster.

There was Sixteen Candles and Clueless last night, gyros, and the aching sensation of wanting/needing a boyfriend; the clay that fills in the cracks in the armor. I began to think of the energy I send out into the world, the gruff grumble aged long-before its time. I size up strangers before they utter the first H in hello, already making up my mind that they will despise me. Gauntlets are thrown. I pick my weapon and prepare for battle. They never stand a chance. I now begin to understand what a formidable opponent I make in this unspoken war. Et tu, John?

Tonight will be filled with the boisterous revelries of a block party. I hope for the magic of a silver-screen moment, fireworks of such brilliance that skies in distance countries are illuminated, dew-filled gazes and a subtle shift of a smile, the ease of shimmering laughter, and "Cast A Hook In Me" by Laura Veirs playing softly in my heart.

Good Morning starshine, the Earth says hello

2008-07-18T05:39:00.000-07:00

The day is still in its infancy.

At 7 a.m. the air shivers with a cool that will not be felt again; the allure of scarcity. Sunlight splashes across the boughs of elder oaks, not quite yet committed to illuminating the World.

There is nectarine juice and muesli for breakfast, bringing back a plethora of similarly colored memories from German camp; another time and place. Mornings spent in the Great Hall among the din of clattering silverware and 12 year-old banter.

Poem of the Moment:

Sakyamuni Coming Out From

The Mountain

Liang Kai, Southern Sung

by Allen Ginsberg

He drags his bare feet

out of a cave

under a tree,

eyebrows

grown long with weeping

and hooknosed woes,

in ragged soft robes

wearing a fine beard,

unhappy hands

clasped to his naked breast-

humility is beatness

humility is beatness-

faltering

into the bushes by a stream,

all things inanimate

but his intelligence-

stands upright there

tho trembling:

Arhat

who sought Heaven

under a mountain of stone,

sat thinking

till he realized

the land of blessedness exists

in the imagination-

the flash come:

empty mirror-

how painful to be born again

wearing a fine beard,

reentering the world

a bitter wreck of a sage:

earth before him his only path.

We can see his soul,

he knows nothing

like a god:

shaken

meek wretch-

humility is beatness

before the absolute World.

NY Public Library 1953

Life Is A Cabret, Old Chum

2008-07-13T02:19:00.000-07:00

These days I collect melodies in my hope chest.

The disembodied lyrics punctuate the silence, providing a running soundtrack to my indie-romance film. There will be quirky adventures: riding the train around the city at dusk with "Closing Scene" by The Radio Dept. playing in the background, photographs and laughter, star-crossed lovers.

You will watch, enraptured. Their American Apparel aesthetic will make you feel guilty for shopping at the Gap, but you will leave the theater feeling refreshed none-the-less. In the end, the characters will have made it work. There would have been impossible odds, of course but, with meaningful symbolism, love found a way.

Perhaps it all reminds you of a former flame, the one you haven't talked to since college. You will contemplate calling, but will get side-tracked as you get closer to home. You will kiss your lover with an intensity you haven't felt in a long time. It will startle you both. You will suggest going out for Indian food instead of making the chicken breasts you set out the night before. There will be too much wine involved. In the after-glow of the evening you will gaze up at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the house settling as your lover sleeps next to you. You will think to yourself, I am so lucky, before closing your eyes.

I'll Be Glad by Bonnie "Price" Billy begins to play softly as the credits begin to roll. With a heavy sigh of envy, I will turn the channel.

Tripe

2008-07-08T00:44:00.000-07:00

Listen, children.

There was a time when I swam in burning paintings. I tied forget-me-knots around my finger from melodies too numerous to name. My pain rumbled like a bass solo, gravely and hard to the touch. I withered in the drought of my own suffering. I spanned lifetimes in a solitary shutter of eyelashes.

The souls of these shoes are worn down, broken in it's soft places. I've collected the atoms of tattered pages, hastily scrawled the ancient phoenician found there and committed it all to memory.

The words tumble out from my mouth as ripe cherries, staining my lips.

Blow Out The Candles Yeltsin And Make A Wish

2008-07-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

I need to read more; oil the words so they won't stick, stick, stick.

My mind is blossoming with a thousand thoughts. They wilt when plucked. I wish I had a heartier garden.

It was my birthday last Wednesday. Sometime in between last year and now, I aged twenty years. Lifetimes spread their wings and fly in the dark pools of my eyes.

Here is what 28 looks like:

Daybreak

2008-06-24T02:20:00.000-07:00

At 5:00 am, the backyard is transformed into an aviary. A thousand different voices greet the emerging sun in a chorus of shrieks, chirps, and whistles.

The ceremony begins on a dimmer switch, gradually shifting from indigo to a luminescent royal; the sky becomes ombre.

The air is heavy with light and water. Morning clings to everything at this hour, a needy child vying for attention over its spoiled half-sibling, the crescent moon.

Somewhere a car door slams, an engine starting up.

The day begins.

For Want of Poetry

2008-06-22T07:11:00.000-07:00

All he needs is favourite skin by ohbijou, a wind-swept June day, a mending heart, a half-eaten cup of peach yogurt, a picture of a long lost sister he once knew, a yellow colored pencil, and a disposable camera.

He will put each one on the shelf, examining their contents. The yellow colored pencil contains pictures of third grade homeroom. He is amazed at all the things he forgot. The crowded desks, walls plastered with cut out bubble words, the dingy aquarium near the sink splattered with paint and dried glue.

Just before the song ends, he presses repeat. It rewinds his life. The leaves look so majestic as they tremble in reverse. They rise up from the ground, reattaching themselves to barely budding branches. The air flows back into his lungs. A letter unballs from the floor, folding itself neatly back in the envelope. He smiles.