Tuesday, May 13, 2008
TOWEL
sitting on the toilet, seat closed, wrapped in a scratchy wet tongue of fabric like a parcel of prime real estate, warmpth, covering the microacres of your wet clammy body, a slug in april, nearly sliding off the seat, spasming to keep warm. its egg yolk yellow somehow creates a sarcastic psychology of comfort.
a towel is a hand that comforts you. a towel is a warm skin waiting to be used, hanging limply on a hook. a towel is a patch of color on the drab sand of a windy beach, a towel keeps the secrets of the contours of your body. a towel is a servant waiting. a towel is a sponge. a towel throws light onto the eyes of swimmers at the pool. a towel covers the casual shame of TV shower bimbos.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
SOLAR SYSTEM
servants of the Sun unable to escape its gravity. accepting its gift of light. planets like actors in a great drama dance endlessly around its irresistable pull.
gravity, invisible chains, strings.
like colorful carousel horses careening around the sun.
maps and charts of the solar system line the walls of the classroom like windows into another universe.
a well oiled machine precariously balanced on the edge of chaos. gears rattle loosely in place--an catastrophe waiting to happen.
a baby drags kness across the scratchy felt of the billiard table, reaching out desperately for the brightly blue ball glinting in the overhead light. drawn like a magnet he plants his fat little mit on the ball and lifts. his face reddens with the effort, a little moan of disappointment and frustration bursts from his mouth. he tries both hands and lifts with all his effort against a force he doesn't yet understand... there's only one wsy to understand anything really--put it in your mouth to see if its food. taste it, test it, suck it. his tongue slides slimily over the glassy surface of the ball as he sucks it tight to his lips, a massive child god eating a tiny planet. miniscule screams reach barely register in his ears.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
MUSHROOM
There’s chatter and expectancy in the air, a joyful and relaxed anticipation. Underneath it all electricity crackles from eye to eye and mouth to ear. I myself am engaged in a very important part of this ritual—I reverently chop the pieces of mushroom into smaller bits, being careful to keep every piece from straying off the board. I wonder which piece, which molecules will make their way to the home of my mind, wherever that may be, to be welcome in heartily, given the full tour of the place, allowed to redecorate using only what’s available within—my own mind and all that’s in it.
The kettle noisily reaches the climax of its sermon, delivering its message. Pompous, self-important blowhard.
The tea is drunk, the friends are all scattered carelessly on furniture like a bachelor’s dirty laundry, and all begin to yawn at once. Funny how that happens—you’re talking animatedly one second, hands flopping like suffocating fish trying to make a point, and the next—you’re mouth is a cave wide enough to spelunk into. But this is just the climb to the first big hill on the roller coaster—hang on!
Monday, May 5, 2008
FROZEN
frozen sounds like my tinnitus, a constant no mercy ringing tone, screaming in my head, centered in my ears. it is frantic motion, but it is also a block of solidity in its constancy. anywhere you slice the bologna of my life, you'd find a bright yellow thread of tinnitus running through it. it struck me one day that it is only time that makes the screeching seem like it has motion, but looking at it another way, it is always there, never changing, frozen. so it is static, really.
i walk on main street in Saranac Lake, NY, a town far north in the Adirondack mountains. this is where the definition of frozen is to be found. walking on the street, sidewalk crusted with ice and snow that squeaks loudly underfoot, breath mists but crystalizes almost instantly and ends up forming icicles on you nostrils, eyes frozen shut, the air so sluggish it refuses to transmit sound.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
SILVER MEDAL
Friday, May 2, 2008
SUN-extra credit
drying heat pulling cells of skin, pinching membranes tighter, drinking all their water. taking giving sucking spitting shedding light on lies and truths blinding eyes ashamed of their failing
impassive ozonic god beholding armies collapsing on themselves glittering of mountains rising and falling church spires stabbing blood flowing from heaven's mouth. all life reaching
still, it hangs spinning impaled in the sky, wilting toward the horizon. sweet-sour smell of fields in bloom, grasshoppers ratcheting in arcs. particles hover in the gelatin air illuminated, dancers in mid-leap. your head humms in sympathy with the cicadas and with the ceasless frantic sun racing to escape from its own impossible center.
ICE SKATE
Slides, skims, cuts, carves across brittle ice.
lacing a skate on each foot snugly, standing unsteadily, ankles like noodles, teetering on the thin knife's edge. each tentative step is a step of faith, of off-centered imbalance, vertiginous. But when skate meets ice there's almost no stopping the nearly frictionless motion. the hollow clacking and brittle breaking of ice as the blades plough through smoothness, an oversized etching. fine ice dust sprays out in arcs and fans scatteringly.
smelling the cold and the snot running from his nose, there's a little boy warmly ensconced in thick layers of puff, standing wobblingly at the edge of the ice. Beneath him are two knives—one strapped to each sole. He's holding onto a chair and staring out into the vast expanse of the lake, echoes of other revelers reach his ears from all directions. the chair is his only connection to stability, and he's feeling its solidity, trusting it to help him stay upright.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
MASKING TAPE
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
DOORSTEP
I've decided to sync up with the folks at objectwriting.com by using their word of the day. this way i don'thave to think of a word, and i have something to compare to, other thoughts to chew on. i don't know how they choose their words, but i'm grateful to them! i'm too sleepy to come up with my own in the morning...
The hard wooden tread of the doorstep is numbing my backside. I'm sitting, legs drawn up so my chin is resting in the space between my knees, the light of day giving way to the watery fog of twilight. This is my favorite time of day—when all begins to quieten as if the scene in a movie were fading out, sound and sight becoming dim, the moment before death or sleep. I hear the rushing of cars like a whining surf washing over everything and wiping away thought. I lift the warm smooth mug of tea to my lips, the steam ticlkes my nostrils with its flowery aroma like a field in spring, taking me far from here for just a moment, leaving the soft taste of honey in my mouth. the warmth of the tea makes me realize my ass is getting cold and its certainly sore. but i stay, shifting to find a more comfortable position.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
CLASSROOM
the broad colorful flag and the songs that we sang as we stare at it blankly with our hands on our hearts, the scattered pictures, the dark dusty chalkboard. the sound of the chalk tap-scraping itssyncopated rhythm across the surface, like jazz drumming. language, writing, music—all one, i learn here, then i am taught to forget at home. for that is another classroom altogether.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
MOUNTAIN
standing at the bottom of a mountain, any mountain, and looking up, or looking at the trail head, is among the most enjoyable moments possible. yes—reaching the top is like an orgasm, and the minutes spent panting afterwards are blissful relief like no other, save sex, perhaps, but really—think about it: you love climbing, you love the forest, the rocks, the wildlife, the streams, the mud—you love experiencing every detail as you walk steadily upward. you love looking to the side and seeing that special “woods perspective'” where you see trees layered in front of and behind other trees until you can see nothing else-- a wall of trees, all moving past as you walk, like a cartoon background, only real. choosing where to place each footfall, for balance, for propelling yourself to the next footfall, heaving your weight up a boulder. getting those occasional amazing and surprising views as you turn a corner and the trees open up like a stage curtain to show you an amazing vista. and the smell of the woods—leaves and pine needles crunching underfoot, each step releasing earthy aromas. mud, dirt, dust all over your legs, unless you're careful to stay clean, which you shouldn't be if you want the full mountain experience. and the summit is the goal. so they say. the summit—where, they also say, you stand when you have “conquered” the mountain. uh uh. i say you've made friends with it the whole way up—gotten to know it intimately, and finally—you climax. weird, i know, but hey—i love climbing mountains!
Sunday, April 20, 2008
DOOR
closed, open. what's behind door number 3?!?! when the door is closed, is anything behind it really there anymore? Doors of possibility. Open one door and another closes. Knock and the door shall be opened for you. the mystery of what is behind the door. Front door. If i knock on your door, will you answer? I can see you peering stealthily through the translucent curtain at the window just next to the door, i see your shadow obscure the peep hole—spy! voyeur! why do you hide behind the door? I only want to talk. I only want to talk, to not be nervous, to connect with you. It's not like i'mI'm
There are many doors, each one has its own purpose and personality. The back door is for sneaking in and out of, the front door is for official, public concerns, sometimes just for show. The side door is, well, I'm not sure. The trap door, is for hiding, or, trapping? keeping something below, a prisoner, a jar of pickles.
Doors are the size of people, portal, passage, gate, entry, exit. Border between in and out, the thin line between accepted and rejected, included and excluded, guarded tightly, left unattended. the last obstacle to gaining entry. I remember whenever someone came to the door at my grandparent's house, grandpa's little dirty-eyed poodle would sprint hyper little circles on the carpet, yapping and panting wetly. never figured out why she would get so wound up—i imagine her little brain all twisted up in a messy corkscrew, all wrung out like a little wet sponge, inside her pathetically small skull cavity. that door. i knew it like a person, it had a voice. every time it opened and closed you heard the same thing, or slightly different for each person, so you could kinda tell who was coming in depending on how ti sounded.
Friday, April 18, 2008
LUNG 2
iron lung. aqua lung. hold your breath. a tide of air, the rythm of nature, life--a cycle behind your mind. involuntarily (conscripted) enslaved to breathing.
breath, take a breath, breath of life, with one breath, with one lung. lung is breath tool.
tool for breathing, chest heaving rising falling---->essence of lung is air------->balloon pink and meaty.
or tortured by smoking, object and target of self loathing (suicidal activity on a geologic schedule) hidden and forgotten it blackens too slowly for notice--only after death and in cross sections does it show the damage (these x-sections look like art) when it rebells it does so audibly--it speaks, it screams, it wheezes and protests.
i noticed when the skinn is peeled back...
bodies surround the visitors at the Body Worlds exhibition. (bodies in various lifelike poses as if frozen in time doing ordinary things--only theses bodies are naked down to the muscle and organs--oh, shame!) people once, these plasticised cadavers look more like thanksgiving leftovers now. the living mingle casually with the dead--or not so casually--some show visible (and audible) signs of being disturbed to various degrees. tiny bits of people are displayed in plexiglass covered cases--dust thickening on their vast clear tops (as skin is the main component of dust--i wonder if this is where the cadaver's skin has gone...) lungs once nestled behind the protective safety of their ribcages now lay exposed and tender-looking (vulnerable)--or were they prisoners in their chests, enslaved to the cycle of breathing in and out (but not endlessly, as now they have been freed by death.) now all they exhale is the plastic stench that permeates this place (their final breath, it seems) oh the lovely lung--enslaved, abused, forgotten--until it protests...
they come in pairs (i forgot!) monogomous for life--one larger and one smaller, like the male and female of the species.
LUNG
he shovels air into the body, because oh he burns. burning but now filling, he heaves himself up larger, into a passageway, wind blowing through like a storm. he grows large, small, he rocks with the need. like wet meat he peels his insides apart to let it all in, as waves of air flood in as if filling a tidal cave. lung. lung. in. out. tension. release. filling. emptying. up. down. rising. falling. empires crawling and spreading like disease in a petridish.. cultures cultured, then, starved, they eat their young. tongues rising and falling, words clashing like swords. time's up. wow, didn't get much out.
i seriously think this sucks, and that writing in the morning, though i want to, is NOT the right time for me to be writing. maybe i'll write about LUNG later as an experiment and see if it goes any better. it really sucks because i used to be such a morning person, now i'm kinda dead in the morning. pity.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
BRAIN
it smells like semen—like semen it tastes. it rises to the top and congeals, like cold fat. moving the head, displacing the bit above the neck, twisting, tilting, zenith, azimuth, jiggling jello momentum makes to move. cavity. liquid sloshing about in a spherical pool, but a sponge holding water floating in the midst. sometimes: flashing lights at the edges, curtain draws tight from the sides like a tilted eye closing, darkness, mist, a mirror melting like mercury running down glass and darkly the world looks back. peeling layers and digging trying to get out. brain, fog. some days are confusing like that. a corrugated landscape, a planet where impulses travel over hills and through valleys to grandmother's musty house, or a salty day at the beach, or a finger being cut by a piece of paper leaving a sting like fire that burns too too long. all roads lead to memory. brain is a metal suitcase stacked with crisp green bills, swimming in meninges. a fish in a bowl, a parrot in a cage, a trophy in a case, gleaming, precious, needing to be fed, repeating what is said.
Monday, April 14, 2008
BUNK
i'm also feeling my metaphors are weak, and i tend to anthrpomorphise a bit too much. i'm obviously not a trained writer, and certainly my creative writing skills are much weaker than my expository writing skills, which is saying very little on behalf of my future as a creative writer. maybe i could write cheesy country songs, or songs for the washed-up entertainer circuit in Vegas...?
HOUSE
Changing. solid but shifting, something new for everyone. a sense of belonging, like a magnet turned the right way, or a puzzle piece that just fits. the shape of your foot imprinted on your shoe. the longer you stay the more invisible it becomes, the walls transparent around you, your mind filling in the spaces behind them, and beyond—it's place in the neighborhood, the world. morning brings light and silence gradually gives way to groans, sizzling, mumbled greetings, life. the walls start listening, and watching, remembering. the smell of food drifting through like weather patterns as the day spins on, as the light sketches arcing patterns on the wall with the pencil of time.* you feel the roof over your head like a hat you never leave without. you wear the walls like a favorite t-shirt. you stand on the floor, trusting it like a ... the windows are your eyes. you are a brain cell and this creature is your house.
first meeting, i tentatively explore the borders, the corners, the closets, looking for an interesting place to be, sniffing around to accelerate my familiarity....(time's up...)
*light extruding through weightless dust, reaching to touch the wall
Saturday, April 12, 2008
SIDEWALK
Hot summer day, pressing down on my head. shorts, shirt, sneakers. nothing else to do. down to the cul-de-sac-turn-around thing where cracks in the asphalt spell out the passing of many unbearably hot days like this one. don't walk barefoot on the sidewalk. it'll take off a layer of your skin. me sitting down on the curb, thighs feeling the rough burning concrete, sweat leaving dark marks on the edge. there's a smell like the road is on fire. the air above it bends the view beyond, waves of distortion rising in sheets. idly i finger the crack between perfect concrete squares, black and gooey, like frosting. unable to stop myself, i pull finger full after fingerfull out, stretch it like toffee along the canvas of the walk. my first Pollack. the smell is sweet and putrid at the same time. I'm tempted to put a greasy morsel into my mouth...almost. now I'm realizing what I've done as i try to scrape the crap off my fingers onto the sidewalk.
Friday, April 11, 2008
POOL
you can smell it even before you see it. even if theres one in the neighborhood, as opposed to, say, the one at the fitness center. your nostrils contract with the super slippery smell of the chlorine, and you know theres a pool nearby. water bound by structure and forced to drink chemicals. otherwise it would be a big, sloppy petri dish experiment.
standing on the diving board, the rough fiberglass under my feet, wet from the last diver, i look down into the water as the instructors words filters into my awareness. dive. it's ok, just go ahead, don't be afraid, sounding muffled through the pulse rushing like a throbbing wind through my ears. the water is too deep, I'm thinking. i can't do this. panic, i want to turn and go back because I'm not so sure about this. the smell of the pool, the half-naked bodies of my schoolmates, and mine—I'm sure everyone's looking right at me now. but i can't move—the waters going to swallow me up and I'm sure I'll end up on the silent bottom with the water crushing my ears, my chest, my lungs. suddenly i feel a push from behind. my head jerks back slightly as my body is propelled forward. i fall heavily for what seems like 10 minutes and finally feel the sting of the surface as it rushes me. ow. an explosion of wet sound, then silence. I'm falling, slowly, but floating too, like going two directions at once. the dry chemical flavor of the water fills my mouth, my eyes bulge, fear pushing to be seen from behind them. eternities trickle away as i thrash, seeking the opposite of down. in an awkward arc i make my violent way back to the brighter light, and when i reach it and plow my way through the surface its like a second birth. i suck a huge, needy, painful breath.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
GUITAR
...bent over the instrument like a lover, he ran his hands over it, almost hiding. his lips were inches away from the strings, as if warming them, blowing them into motion, lubricating them with his spit, sharing voices, whispering...
He was about at tall as the odd and intricate thing in the corner. looks like a person almost, standing there, round hips and flat belly, long neck and alien head with six jutting peg-like features—eyes? looking? he went to introduce himself, as his mother was busy with her biker friend. his eyes were at about the level of the face of this odd creature. he saw that there were strings running almost the entire length of the stranger, so, by way of handshake, he plucked at one. The sound that came wrapped him like a womb. He waited for the note to fade. He plucked again, a different string this time, a different note. Then 2 at once. A whole different feeling. Something solid and soft, not cold not hot. He added rhythm, and played the strings in order, plucking each 4 times, slowly. Charmed, I'm sure.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
BOAT
boats are a big part of his life—if he's not skimming along the surface of Upper Saranac lake in one with his brother and dad, he's crawling under the old rotten wooden one that's leaning up against the side of the garage in the yard. that one's retired, he imagines. he wonders if it ever COULD float, its so crappy looking. paint peeling off in sheets, soft rot where it touches the ground. the only thing it's good for is a bit of shade on hot summer days—makes a great hiding place-except for the wood-boring bees that have turned it into swiss cheese. AND they kinda don't seem so hospitable. you know there there even when you can't see them. he can feel them watching him and he just know they're waiting for him to come close enough. that's when they start buzzing around him like they're gonna make swiss cheese out of HIM!
the better boat was the one that floats—dad's aluminum with the outboard. dad takes him and his brother fishing on the weekends. they hook the trailer up to the car and zoom down to lake flower to put it in. the boat rings like a bell behind the car on the way. at the boat launch, he can smell the lake water and the “seaweed” that washes up with the dead fish and foam. not too appetizing. getting into the boat is another thing—its like trying to stand on a dodge ball! but once he's in, he feels secure enough. he likes the rocking, and the pounding of the boat on the waves as it tears through the surface of the water, leaving its own waves in its wake.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
BOILER
at the back of the kitchen, tucked away in a dark corner was a door. behind the door was a steep, dusty, rickety wooden stairway down into a pool of musty shadow—the cellar. my favorite place in the house. down the narrow passage i would go, most days, to the vast concrete chamber—my private universe where the sounds and smells were like an alien world. i could have been in the belly of a ship, though i didn't really know what that was like. i knew it was at the bottom of the house, so it felt secure, to know that the rest of my world was right there above me. i enjoyed exploring the perimeter of my alien world like some frontier adventurer seeking new vistas of beauty. the angles where the walls met and the places where pipes penetrated were of particular interest to my young, abstract mind. but the lord of the cellar was not me, no—i was just a visitor. the true master, the mysterious and unpredictable regent who's will flowed like invisible tendrils of magnetism through every dusty, smelly, darkened corner of the cellar, was his royal highness—the Boiler. every now and then he would make some unintelligible pronouncement—hissing suddenly, clacking metalically. he had a vent cover that moved like a hand casually dismissing a servant.
Monday, April 7, 2008
SNOW
drifting down, the snow swirled in my wake. looking up, i felt a rush of fast motion—i was in hyperspace! tiny pinpricks of cold pierced my face. all is silent. people had been forewarned of the “terrible” weather we were due to get—8-10 inches of snow. so the streets were relatively empty, save for the snow carefully layering itself from the ground up, patiently and indiscriminately coating the landscape. muting sound like a warm blanket pulled over your head on a cold night. my feet carved canyons as i walked, each footstep kicking up dust that distributed itself in front of me. i thought about other times i had walked alone—in rain, in snow, at night. it seemed to me that these things are like another person who is with you. the weather's boring anyway, when nothing is happening. when it snows, its an event! something to go see. something to experience. that was why this night had pulled me out of my warm house into the cold company of the snow.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
WINE
Saturday, April 5, 2008
AN EMPTY ROOM
Friday, April 4, 2008
LIGHTBULB
cold and smooth when sleeping, impossibly hot, searing skin, blinding heat and the tight skin that lingers to remind you never, ever to touch a lightbulb that's on. even when its off, you hesitate before touching, testing, expecting the sharp sting.
a boy of 7, still swimming in a world of possibilities and unrealities, sits on the edge of his bed in a room illuminated warmly by one lamp. the bulb within suddenly and silently extinguishes itself, as if putting itself to bed. light from the hall allows the boy to find a flashlight. questioningly he pooints the flashlight at the bulb and turns it on. light like water flows and fills the bulb for a moment. but as the boy suspected it would, it stays! the light works again!
Thursday, April 3, 2008
FRIEND
i knocked on the door to see if AJ was home. he was. “wanna ride bikes?” i asked, expectantly. ok. riding around the neighborhood was one of the most fun things..the wind rushing in my ears, the bumpy road beating up my spine through my seat. rocking back and forth as i pedaled as fas as i could, all the while feeling my friend right behind me, or seeing him hop over potholes or swerve around them in front of me. i enjoyed it while i could. eventually the friendships would, for reasons beyond my little child knowledge, become boring to the other, as if i were a toy that had lost its appeal, or a bit of bread left to harden too long on the counter—no longer useful or appetizing.
...desperate for something to do, skin crawling with it, he roamed the neighborhood, stick in hand, smacking the sides of those big green electrical boxes just to make that deep metallic clang. as if to announce “I AM HERE! COME PLAY WITH ME!” finding friendship in the dust on the ground, finding comfort in the place where two walls met. finding something to say to a shadow. following demons on their underground paths. playing catch with a rubber ball, feeling the frustration of not being able to catch it everytime. picking up the biggest rock he could handle, grey cold and rough, and taking his revenge on the precocious ball by throwing the rock at its soft bruiseable surface. but no, the ball was more resilient and the rock bounced directly back to hit him in the teeth, gritty, bloody, salty, metallic. lesson learned—your agression only comes back to hurt you.