Tuesday, December 22, 2009

fuck buddies

this is the green and brown of the trees as we smeared out against the december sky. how my mouth filled with the aching taste of blue as we learned to fly: your wings shaded like the jay you rescued in my front yard. mine spanning out like those of the albatross .
this is the way i have rolled you in my mouth and found you sour.
this is the way the hair on your chest sweeps along the ribs, looking like a flock of geese in flight.
this is the corner of my eye where you flash flannel plaid in the peripheary of my vision.
this is my reflection in the glass of your sunroom doors, pale and insubstantial with my face warped by the glasses weft.
this is the rush of wind as the hawk falls towards its prey. this is the silence of a wolf in the undergrowth. this is the clack your claws make on the linoleum as you come up behind me while i am making potato salad.
this is a lonely night in the kitchen with only a lamp on. i will remember this in a radiator popping at my feet. i will remember this as the dull sound that drifts in the window as in the backyard you carve a cave out of the night. it is winter. a drift is forming on the sill. your paws track snow when you make your way in, early in the morning. i am sitting at the table playing solitaire. you ask me what’s to eat as you settle into the chair across from me.
this is your hand splayed in my chest hair, your knees bending mine. i will remember this in the stunned seconds i wake up in. i will remember this in you breathing deep and even, clutching me. my fingers follow your spine, a line of breadcrumbs.
this is a cricket’s song that only i can hear. a chorus of a thousand thousand calling out in a wash of silver.
this is the rush of startled quail bursting out of the long grass.
this is the way you’ve lost the past tense, sloughed it off like a snake’s skin and left it in my bedroom. a pile in the middle of the rug.
this is the clatter of your engine, the unique tick of your piston’s pump. in my dreams, i am blinded by your headlights as your engine brattles behind them. each blade of grass, each brick of the driveway leaps out in sharp relief. i will remember this in urgency.
this is the quiet hour of the night where you seek me out. your snout guides you true to me where you nuzzle against the warmth of my flesh.
this is the scrape of metal against the inside of my ribcage.

this is the letter i mailed:
when i say you approach me, do i not mean
that my understanding of your hand
comes against your understanding of my back?
the wake my fingers leave trailing across your chest
is sentences in your mind.
when i say i miss you, do i not mean
that i have not seen the particular aperture of your pupil
in quite some time?

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Leuconostoc Mesenteroides dominates, producing a mix of acids, alcohol, and aroma compounds.

He stands in the open doorway of the fridge in his underwear. The chill light spills out behind him in the dark. Fog curls from the walls of the fridge in response to the sticky summer air. He fishes a pickled peach from the jar in the fridge. A bit of juice escapes and runs down in his beard. He closes the fridge door and pads through the dining room into the sunroom. He sits on the old woven couch and watches the long street. Headlights play across the windows as gravel in the driveway crunches under wheels. The headlights cast shadows, foreign and long, against the far wall. He listens to the car door open and close. He fishes another peach from the jar. The dogs run out of the bedroom and stand at the door, heads cocked at odd angles. The clicking of the deadbolt echoes through the house. He watches Eric walk by and into the bedroom.
“I’m here,” he calls.
Eric walks into the sunroom.
“Want a peach?” He asks, holding out the jar. The brine in the jar sloshes. The peaches swim in circles. “You look handsome in the dark, suits your complexion,” he says, taking a bite of peach.
“What?” Eric laughs, sinking onto the couch next to him. He wraps an olive arm around his chest and pushes his face into his neck, in the curve above the shoulder. “What are you doing out here?” he asks, his words muffled.
“I was just thinking about Canada,” he says, taking another bite of peach.
“You just dribbled peach juice on my face.”
“The porcupines like the taste of the glue used in the plywood, so they come out at night and I remember the sound of them chewing on the eaves of the cabin. Your tires in the driveway sounded like that grinding.” He takes another bite of peach.

He smells lilac bushes in a dream and wakes with a start. The wine bottles rattle as he tosses them in the recycling bin. He checks the mail and finds six notices from the bank. He cuts himself while doing the dishes, the good knife, the Christmas gift from his roommate’s sister, finding the soft meat of his palm. His shoes creak. He seals the envelope. The cards clatter as he shuffles them. He takes the film off the frozen lasagna, the heat rolling out from the oven and coaxing a ring of sweat from the base of his hairline. He brushes his hand across his thigh, dusting his jeans with the orange powder of the Cheetohs. His phone lights up as he types on the keypad. He organizes the book case in alphabetical order first from a to z and then the reverse. The doorknob to his apartment comes off in his hand as he turns it. He passes the stack of past-due library books as he leaves, the pile tilting against the wall, a mountain of dimes, growing slowly. The marshmallow burns the roof of his mouth as he pulls it off the stick. The tea kettle hums a low chord. He pops the top of the bottle. The sounds waves reach him, soft and golden. He places more spinach than he thinks necessary for the dish in the pan, knowing it will wilt down further than he expects. He bends down to tie his shoe and remembers his childhood friend, the one that got the tennis shoes he wanted, the ones that pumped up, and how he had burned to own them.

He hadn’t planned for tonight to turn out the way it did. He hadn’t expected the drinks being as strong as they were. He didn’t know he would turn the corner and see him. He didn’t anticipate getting loud and pushing through the crowd out into the chill of the evening. He left his helmet at the bar. He left his debit card too. The fluorescent lights of the gas station bathroom play across his face, drawing out gaunt shapes. He vomits in the sink. Sweat crawls down to his nose and hangs there. It’s a bad idea to ride your bike this drunk. A pain fires between his third and fourth ribs. He holds his hand to his side as he breathes. “Fuck, I’m out of shape,” he says, spitting into the sink.

The egg cracks unevenly as he taps it against the side of the bowl, several small pieces of shell crawling down the side to the batter. He scatters the crumbs in the bottom of his paper bag under the table, watching as a few finches work up the courage to dart under and claim them. He peeks out the bottom right-hand corner of the living room window, sneaking a look at the person ringing the door bell. The eyes of the fresh-caught squid seem to follow him as he passes the fish stall at the market. His oar cuts into the water, the canoe rocking gently with the shifting of his weight. He puts a pot of coffee on. He eyes his grandfather warily as he accepts the plate with a pimento cheese sandwich on it. The waitress stands over him, tapping her order pad with a pencil. He picks up his roommate’s pumice stone in the shower, and thinking of her, rubbing it against her foot - one hand bracing against the tub wall - sets it back and rinses his hands in the water. The car’s thermostat dial clicks as he turns it to defrost. In his dream, he finds a manatee while snorkeling, several ribbons of red curling out from her back where she met with a motorboat. He sets several pieces of bacon in the skillet, the fat spitting as it hits the pan.

“I rode all the way over here with a fucking cast-iron skillet – open the fucking door.”
The deadbolt clicks and the door swings open.
Eric is standing in the entryway. He crosses his arms and doesn’t move.
“I couldn’t call. I don’t have your number.” He stands on the stoop, bike resting against his hip. “Can I come in?”
Eric steps aside.
He wheels his bike in and leans it against the fireplace. “Can I get some water?” he asks.
“I’ll grab it,” Eric says and walks out of the room.
He sits on the couch. It is deep and his legs stick out. He hears the faucet shut off and scoots forward so he can bend his knees.
Eric returns and holds out the water. He remains standing.
“Do you wanna sit?”
He sits on the edge of the cushion at the far end.
“So you finally brought my skillet back.”
“Yeah, I cooked some with it, but didn’t wash it.”
“Only took you, what, two of my skillets ruined to learn that?” he asks, smiling.
“I’ll never forget it.”
“I bet you won’t.”
He pulls the skillet out of his bag and sets it on the ground. Eric’s dog ambles over and sniffs it. He reaches over and scratches between his shoulder blades. The dog starts licking the pan.
“I also brought your Roseanne box set,” he says, pulling it out of the bag, “it’s just too good.”
“I’ve been relying on reruns on cable,” Eric says scooting closer on the couch and snatching the box.
“Damn, can’t wait?”
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” he says. “What else you got in there?”
“I found your Jeep’s service manual in a drawer the other week,” he says, pulling it out and setting it on the arm of the couch.
Eric leans over and fishes through the books and notebooks in the bag. “You getting rid of this too?” he asks, pulling out a plastic zombie figurine.
“That just stays in my bag,” he says grabbing the zombie away. He drags it in a lurch across the couch cushion. “He’s been watching my back. Eating brains. Living the life.”
“The undead life.”
Silence grows between them, broken only by the noise of the dog still licking the pan on the floor.
“You know that’s gross, right?” He says, nudging the pan with his shoe.
“Doesn’t bother me.”
“Well, let me be the first to tell you.”
“I’d still go back in the house for you,” Eric says.
“What?” he asks, turning to face him.
Eric scratches his beard and looks at him from the corner of his eye. “You heard me.”
“You need to work on your nonchalant act.”
Eric laughs.
“Do you remember the time,” he begins, “we were playing zombies and I got so mad at Victoria?
“And so drunk,” Eric interrupts.
“Oh, come on, not that drunk.”
“You’re talking about the time she got the skateboard and made it to the helipad and you flipped the board over?”
“No, the other time.”
“When I used dynamite to clear the helipad?”
“Yeah.”
“You were drunk then too.”
“Ah, well.”
“I’ve lost about half my zombies from you flipping boards over.”
“I’ll buy you a new pack. Don’t worry, It’s a small price to pay.
“Zombies and cast-iron skillets?” Eric asks, raising his eyebrows.
“Worthwhile.”

He holds the banana to the side of his head, mimicking a telephone. He picks at the scab above his left eyebrow. He grabs an old woman’s shoulder, bracing himself against the lurch of the bus. He picks at the apple seed stuck between his two front teeth. When it’s quiet, he can hear his sunburned shoulders crackle as he moves them. He watches the man’s jaw line move as he talks. He wakes with a start as the bookshelf next to his bed crashes into his dresser. He watches as his roommate embroiders a tiger. He pours the frosting over the petit fours. He quickly counts the bartender’s freckles as he orders. He picks up the tissue paper on Christmas morning, folding it and placing it in the gift wrap box in the closet. He buttons his cardigan. He moves his queen to take his opponent’s rook. He moves left on the bench as the girl across from him blows smoke in his face. He pulls a fudgesicle out of the freezer. He swears as the train terminal rejects his swipe card. He eats pancakes, dipping each bite in a pool of syrup on a separate plate. He twirls his fork, trying to break the string of cheese traveling back to the plate. He throws a book across the room at the roach. The chickens in the back yard, pecking beneath his bedroom window at pebbles and insects call to one another and wake him.

He rolls over on his back and pulls the Afghan throw over his head. The light from the lamp next to the bed winks through the spaces the crochet hook did not braid. Even though he has just washed it, it smells like the old house. There, underneath the April Spring Fresh is a smell less commercial: old, dog, a comforting must. He stretches his arm out from under it and pushes the fabric across his teeth. It squeaks – the fibers of the wool vibrating against the stridulations of his teeth. He pulls his arm back under and wiggles his fingers through the holes – rings on his fingers, no bells for the toes. He knows it’s a matter of time until the smell of this house will settle on the blanket: the onions his roommate always cooks with, the peach brine he spilled, and the cut of chill he swears is from whatever’s haunting the house.

what are poets but vultures, circling for the choicest meats

i am sitting on the beach with you,
where the land bleeds off at the seam into the water,
and the water bleeds black into the night.
you are just a silhouette,
silver backlit by the easy moon as you say,
“i know it’s cliché, but those boats on the horizon make me feel lonely.”

i have felt this same aimless longing
standing in the velvet of the waves
as the foam snapped out along the sand.
why is it that you and i and everyone before can feel this
here at the sifting of the water?
in the rain on a window upon waking.
in the smoke of a cigarette stitching out from your hand.

there is truth in that which is trite,
a clumsy filmy light groping along what it illumes;
yet we dare not speak words so bare and bromide,
we confide as an aside or beneath the night
that moments in our lives are significant.
we are all a crude poetry,
the long days, moments of metaphor sliding past before we can hem them to us.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Michael Maestlin Called to Say that It's Just One Decimal Place Off

do you remember what you've dreamed? the notion is silly. It resembles a clown-faced tenderness. do you remember the blackberry bush in the backyard that would bloom in spring. do you still have that scar from slipping in the brambles? do you remember late nights with just the kitchen light ? there is a longing for you, for those afternoons and evenings. it was new for a moment. everything dissolves in days. i have come to you across thousands of pines. you were a finger width away last night as i checked the map. mexico was periwinkle stretching out below. does distance signify endless desire. have you been back to the island in the river we camped on? there's a woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunk of that black birch. do you still agree with Hass about each particular being the falling off from a first world of undivided light? we caught in the muddy places. the father's body is the numinous flesh. do your r's still look like m's when you try to write in cursive? did you send your elegy by correspondence? did you save my drawings? the words are hanging on one thousand walls. my hair is in your hands. the places remember how love was made. did you manage to braid your beta keratins? did you take to the sky on feathers foreign and wrong? i love the orange silver of your shoulders. the leaves are turning a shade reminiscent of you. it is all about the old. after a while, I understood. do you hurt? do you still wonder at the grief? i have drunk my weight in wine one thousand times. have you been thinking? are you at a loss? this world is almost a boat. sometimes i can feel the small fish beneath the willows. was there a woman? i felt her presence like a thin wire of salt. it hardly had to do with her. do you feel you have your justice? you've been lingering in my whiskey. have you found continuing pleasure? who rests their weight full against your collarbone these days? does your voice still sound the same, a soft rumble washed out by the noise around it? i'm still allergic to bee stings. i've been roasting pumpkinseeds this fall. do you ever remember the taste of the shoulder? do you think of the scent of the arm? is your thirst still tragic? i am still drunk. are you still querulous in the mornings? do you still take that tone? i felt dismantled in the thing you said. have you made friends? do you still bake your own bread? i've stitched you in the cotton running out beneath the floorboards. did you find your clarity? i've only got the general idea. i swear it's been that way since childhood. are you still sometimes violent? would you still mock me when I say words like luminous? where are you holding on?


if it comes to blows, i will lay you out.

Monday, October 26, 2009

i have carved my hame in the kitchen table, the "j" drawling out beneath your butter knife.

i have stayed up late
smoking joints with my roommate again.
we lost most thursdays this way,
burning it from its end
until all we have left is a handful of vowels and hours before morning’s light.
“home is where the heart is,”
i say, setting my bourbon on Aubrey’s desk, “and the thing about that is,
how do you find your heart before it’s too late?”
the ice in my glass catches the lamplight
- sending it out in flashes again and again,
laving across his face, and before i reach the end
of my statement, he turns from his computer and rolls his eyes my way.
this is the way
things usually go between us, and it is
the closest i’ve come to home since the end
of my first one: coming home late
one night and fighting with my father again
in the kitchen, the bulb over the stove, under the hood, the only light.
i’ve yet to forget that light,
the way it seemed all soft yellows,
and if i could do it again –
well, it doesn’t really matter, the reality is
that it’s far too late
for that. regardless if you expect or want it, an end is an end.
i have had too many ends
already. watched the snuffing out of too much light.
it feels as if i am arriving a moment late,
that if i had taken another way,
the shortcut i’ve been meaning to try, i’d show up before everyone is
saying goodbye. again.

again,
i will come in at an end.
the truth is,
the light
only ever illuminates the way
that seems to make me late.

i’d like to not be late again
and for my wandering way to end.
aubrey’s light is still on.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

over the next seventy years, you'll probably only store one hundred twenty five megabytes in your memory.

there was an open field next to my father's church in missouri, and i remember
how, after service, i would wade out with the other boys
-awash in weeds, padding silently in penny loafers - watching as their bodies shone
in the afternoon sun as we would hunt for grasshoppers.
i never was able to catch them, to hold them
between my hands - something in the way they ate grass terrified me.

that church was demolished a few years ago, the sanctity leaving with each pew
the movers loaded into the truck. the baptismal pulled out by a crane through a hole
in the roof, and finally the bulldozers and backhoes.

they built a race track there, asphalt sprawling across the nearby open fields
- and the roar of engines, the chambers igniting and pistons pumping sound much like
the grasshoppers' stridulations: the well-defined lip being moving across a
finely-ridged surface and vibrating as it does so.

like my corduroy slacks, one thigh against the other as i would run into the grass, peppered with blooms of clip-on neck ties.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

I Owe a Cock to Asclepius

He moves among the chickens. He wears jeans, a v-necked white undershirt stained with the memory of work, and brown cowboy boots. The hens protest his presence with the din of their collected clamor. A jerking roiling mass of brown feathers, beaks and stuttering feet, punctuated here and then suddenly there with the lustrous gleam of a dark eye peering between the action to catch his. And he leans down to catch the chicken by the neck, and he rolls his hand in a sudden flick. Barely registering the dull snap of the vertebrae, the heave of the soft body as the life abruptly dissipates. Not lost in the languid motion from the veins or snuffed in the entrapment of the lungs, but like a brief flash of energy, a firefly’s lamp deep in a clump of weeds. There and then the next moment, lost. Life is different than you think. He culls for hours. He rolls the right and left wrists, freeing the birds of their burdens. He sets them in piles of fifteen. He sets ten piles of fifteen. His wrists hurt, the dull ache spreading back from the heel of his palm to his elbow, brightened by a shock of pain now and then. He sits in the grass away from the chicken house and the ten piles of fifteen. His shirt sticks to the sweat that spreads across his chest. The stains deepen. The sun stands overhead and he has been working since this morning.

“Felis Cattus, is Your Taxonomic Homenclature, an Endothermic Quadruped Carnivorous by Nature?”

Aubrey leans back in the high-backed antique chair he's sitting in at the desk,
"So this lady at work today, she always has a glass of wine by herself and today she had this like, bag with all these kittens in it.
He pauses as Shenise and I laugh
"All these," he continues
"What!" Shenise interrupts.
"Kittens!!" I say, pulling the afghan covering Shenise to lie over my legs. The air pulled into the room from the window by the fan is chill and carries the call of crickets.
Aubrey huffs and continues, "They were all gold and there were all these purples and teals . . ." "Wait wait wait," I exclaim, waving my hands, "so the pattern on the purse was kittens?" "Yeah."
“I thought you meant the purse was full of the animal.”
Shenise begins to laugh, the mattress carrying the shake of her body to where I sit at the foot of the bed.
“I wouldn’t have been attached to it then,” Aubrey says, cutting his eyes from the embroidery hoop he’s working on to glare at my stupidity.
“But when I complimented it, she said she had eleven cats.”
“Ohhhhh, she’s a crazy cat lady,” Shenise groans
“Eleven?!”
“Yeah, eleven does put you in crazy territory,” Aubrey agrees.
“Yeah.”
“Totally.”
“Is she married?” Shenise asks
“I don’t think so,”
“I don’t think soooooo,” I say overlapping Aubrey’s facts with my conjecture.
“And then she told me about this puppy someone had - a Chihuahua”
“Ugh, no.”
“Now, she was watching it. And she wore it. At the bar. Under her blouse. It’s little head would poke out here,” Aubrey sets the hoop down and grabs the neck of his t-shirt, pulling it down and flapping it.”
“Ahahahaohmygod,” Shenise says, rolling from side to side, tangling the afghan around her. “Are you serious? And you listened to her?!” Aubrey sighs and begins stitching again.
“You’re way too nice.”
“She’s ollld,” he chuckles, “I don’t know. I was like, waiting for my tables to finish eating. Everything was done. I kinda wanted to hear what the crazy cat lady had to say. She’s hilarious. She went on forever. And she told me if I ever. I told her that there’s cats. That the neighbors let their cats run wild. And she said ‘You should go play with them. You know what you should do? Get some catnip and rub it all over your body. Lie on the ground’ . . .”
Shenise bursts over Aubrey’s story, hooting
“. . . and they’ll come play with you!”
We all laugh, Aubrey setting his head on the desk. My eyes water and in the tears the lamplight sets his hair on fire.
“I’m serious,” he continues after catching his breath.
“There’s. no way. that’s true,” Shenise punctuates her sentence with chuckles.
“I’m so serious. She told me to do that. And I just thought about claws like,” Aubrey swivels the chair to face us and rakes at the air, a feline snarl pulling his lips back from his teeth, “cats jumping on you . . .”
“Rubbing on you,” I add.
“. . . she had this look of ecstasy.”
“Wow, using herself to get her cats high,” I say
“Yeah, but it’s just like, ugh, something about. There’s something crazy cat lady - there’s something about the physicality of it . . .”
“Yeah,” Shenise agrees.
“Rubbing,”
“on her,” Shenise finishes my sentence.
“. . . all over her. It’s like making love to a pack of cats.” Aubrey rubs his hands in a flourish across his chest, the movements growing more exaggerated as our laughter grows, the fan blowing it out the door where it spills into the living room and fills it.

Friday, September 18, 2009

The Majority of Words with Preantepenultimate Stress Have No Rhyme.















  1. The chickens in the back yard, pecking beneath his bedroom window at pebbles and insects call to one another and wake him.
  2. Lemon juice finds the cut in his thumb and burns, a soft tide of pain accented here and then there by a dash of fire up the nerves.
  3. The car’s thermostat dial clicks as he turns it to defrost.
  4. He smells lilac bushes in a dream and wakes with a start, the sheets tangled about his ankles, a slight sweat on his bare chest.
  5. The counter blurs and muddies as the onion he’s cutting gets to him.
  6. The sun stands high as he tans on the dock, the dull whine of each passing boat followed by the gentle rocking of its wake on the wooden pylons.
  7. The wine bottles rattle as he tosses them in the recycling bin, protesting their disrespectful discharge now that their task is finished.
  8. He checks the mail and finds six notices from the bank, informing him of his overdrafts from last week.
  9. He cuts himself while doing the dishes, the good knife, the Christmas gift from his roommate’s sister, finding the soft meat of his palm.
  10. His shoes creak, leather sounding against leather, and he steps more lightly, embarrassed by the sounds.
  11. Running his tongue along his teeth, he pauses on the molar he cracked opening a bottle of beer.
  12. He seals the envelope, the adhesive tasting of civic offices, long lines, and impatience.
  13. The cards clatter as he shuffles them, folding them into order and he bends them in a bridge, a move his grandmother taught him.
  14. The wind worries his scarf, a hand pulling gently on his left shoulder.
  15. He takes the film off the frozen lasagna, the heat rolling out from the oven and coaxing a ring of sweat from the base of his hairline.
  16. He brushes his hand across his thigh, dusting his jeans with the orange powder of the Cheetohs.
  17. His phone lights up as he types on the keypad -- the harsh blue casting across his face and contrasting with the dark of the bar.
  18. He catches the scent of the grass his neighbor is cutting, the smell intermingled with dirt and gasoline.
  19. As the girl next to him at the bar talks on the phone, he thinks of the synonyms for the words she’s using, pausing to sip his drink while she listens to her friend.
  20. He organizes the book case in alphabetical order first from a to z and then the reverse.
  21. The doorknob to his apartment comes off in his hand as he turns it.
  22. His fingertips are raw, worn red and tender from the edge of the concrete pool -- from his pulling himself up and over to lay on the gray and the grit and dry with the heat of the sun.
  23. He passes the stack of past-due library books as he leaves, the pile tilting against the wall, a mountain of dimes, growing slowly.
  24. He hands his passport to the doorman and flushes warm, pointing to his date of birth as the doorman’s eyes flash to the I.D. picture and then up to take in his face.
  25. He picks off the snails in the window box each morning, not wanting to salt them, to watch the slow withering of their forms.
  26. The marshmallow burns the roof of his mouth as he pulls it off the stick, the acrid char of the just-flaming sugar bursting bitter against the sweet.
  27. The tea kettle hums a low chord and he turns, picks it up with a dish towel, fills two mugs, tea bags floating just below the surface of the water.
  28. He pops the top of the San Pellegrino, setting it on the counter and tosses the cap into the stein next to the register.
  29. The sounds waves reach him, soft and golden, washing past him in a gentle rush.
  30. He glances at the number on his vibrating phone, it has followed him across four phones, finding a home each time amidst the list of numbers despite his better judgment.
  31. He places more spinach than he thinks necessary for the dish in the pan, knowing it will wilt down further than he expects.
  32. The subway heads down the tunnel, the soft rush of the wind racing ahead and stopping to sting his lips, chapped with the chill of November.
  33. He halves the blueberry muffin, buttering the top and setting the bottom aside for someone else.
  34. He bends down to tie his shoe and remembers his childhood friend, the one that got the tennis shoes he wanted, the ones that pumped up, and how he had burned to own them.
  35. The lights of the city spread out in patterns foreign to his own and he understands that it is these new patterns he is drawn to and not necessarily the location.
  36. His flask flashes as he turns in the corner of the bar to refill his plastic cup with whiskey.
  37. He drops his notebook and it falls open, the loose leaf papers, carrying their various meanings, catch the morning breeze and set out down the sidewalk in paths of their own choosing.
  38. The girl sleeping next to him on the plane breathes gently through her mouth and he thinks how much he hates mouth breathers.
  39. The smell of his aftershave catches him between thought processes, grabbing him and grounding his mind in the concrete upon which he is walking.
  40. His shins ache as he skates around the rink, a dull roar radiating out across the nerves of his lower back.
  41. The faces of the triplet children at the table next to him catch his attention and he watches as they radiate through a kaleidoscope of expressions.
  42. The sailboats move about in the bay and he watches as their wakes cut insignificant paths in front of the slower barges.
  43. He feels the pollen settle in his respiratory system as he steps out the front door, a gentle yellow carpet laying itself along the soft tissue of his throat.
  44. He counts the customer’s change from the register.
  45. The egg cracks unevenly as he taps it against the side of the bowl, several small pieces of shell crawling down the side to the batter.
  46. He scatters the crumbs in the bottom of his paper bag under the table, watching as a few finches work up the courage to dart under and claim them.
  47. He stands at the balcony, leaning on his elbows, and thinks how the sidewalk looks like tetris from fourteen stories above.
  48. He peeks out the bottom right-hand corner of the living room window, sneaking a look at the person ringing the door bell.
  49. The eyes of the fresh-caught squid seem to follow him as he passes the fish stall at the market and thinks, “ubiquitous gaze.”
  50. The image of strawberries flashes in his mind as he passes wrestling while channel surfing.
  51. His mind drifts in math class, losing track of the stipulations to ensure his formula’s accuracy.
  52. The circuit board he just pulled out of his computer reminds him of a cityscape, people reduced to electrical impulses firing along copper wire.
  53. His oar cuts into the water, the canoe rocking gently with the shifting of his weight.
  54. He watches the moth on the screen door as he smokes on the front porch, debating whether a male or female name would be more appropriate for it.
  55. The book he picks up is dog-eared, the marked page telling the account of Schubert’s unfinished symphony.
  56. He sets several pieces of bacon in the cast iron skillet, the fat spitting as it hits the pan.
  57. The wind catches his umbrella, bending the metal spine against its design.
  58. He pierces the skin of the grape with the lateral and medial incisors, a dash of tart tannins followed by a swift cascade of sweet.
  59. He writes the word “flabbergasted,” and thinking it misspelled, scratches it out and tries rewriting it several times before returning to the original spelling.
  60. The juice from the orange, the bit that escaped has run down to his chin.
  61. He puts a pot of decaf coffee on, thinking how he once thought he’d never do this.
  62. He eyes his grandfather warily as he hands him a plate with a pimento cheese sandwich on it.
  63. The waitress stands over him, tapping her order pad with a pencil, as he deliberates whether he can eat lamb or not.
  64. He picks up his roommate’s pumice stone in the shower, and thinking of her, rubbing it against her foot - one hand bracing against the tub wall, sets it back and rinses his hands in the water.
  65. His reads the word “disidentification” in an essay and jots it on a margin in his notebook, meaning to use it in a poem.
  66. The tofurkey on his plate makes him think of pleather and how all the girls in eighth grade had black jackets made of the substitute skin.
  67. In his dream, he finds a manatee while snorkeling, several ribbons of red curling out from her back where she met with a motorboat.
  68. He fishes a pickled peach from the jar in the fridge.
  69. At his nephew’s insistence, he’s sat at the table scattered with legos, his hands feeling crude and clumsy as he attempts to wrangle form.
  70. He wipes down the stainless steel countertop, catching a glimpse of his reflection, blurred and distorted by the metal, his face a rough shape of pink marked by dark featureless shadows.
  71. He holds the banana to the side of his head, mimicking a telephone.
  72. He picks at the scab above his left eyebrow.
  73. He grabs an old woman’s shoulder, bracing himself against the lurch of the bus.
  74. The wind dies suddenly and his kite begins to drift down, the string going slack in his hands.
  75. The dollars she hands him are warm and damp, having been pulled from her bra strap.
  76. The tires turning in the gravel driveway make him think of the porcupines in Canada and the way they would gnaw at the rafters at night, hungry for the taste of the glue.
  77. He picks at the apple seed stuck between his two front teeth.
  78. He cringes as ice cream from the cone in his hand melts over his fingers.
  79. When it’s quiet, he can hear his sunburned shoulders crackle as he moves them.
  80. He watches the man’s jaw line move as he talks.
  81. He wakes with a start as the bookshelf next to his bed crashes into his dresser.
  82. He watches as his roommate embroiders a tiger, pulling the form out with each string.
  83. He pours the frosting over the petit fours.
  84. The fluorescent lights of the gas station bathroom play across his face.
  85. He quickly counts the bartender’s freckles as he orders.
  86. He picks up the tissue paper on Christmas morning, folding it and placing it in the gift wrap box in the closet.
  87. He buttons his cardigan
  88. He moves his queen to take his opponent’s rook, forcing check.
  89. He feels uncomfortable drinking out of the milk carton, his hands too large for the small box.
  90. He moves left on the bench as the girl across from him absent-mindedly blows smoke in his face.
  91. He weeds the garden, reaching between the hairy vines of the squash to reach the intrusive growth.
  92. He pulls a fudgesicle out of the freezer
  93. He swears as the train terminal rejects his swipe card.
  94. The sounds of the chicken house washes over him, a warbling stuttering choir.
  95. He tosses another log on the fire and watches the sparks rise in the currents of heat.
  96. He eats pancakes, dipping each bite in a pool of syrup on a separate plate.
  97. The coffee grinder drowns out the conversation behind him, but he nods his head from time to time to seem as if he’s listening.
  98. He twirls his fork, trying to break the string of cheese traveling back to the plate.
  99. He listens to the women talk of petunias, impatients, and other annuals, thinking how their regional sensibilities are foreign to him.
  100. The sun cuts in his windshield at a low angle, forcing him to squint.
  101. He opens the card from his family, noting that he does not recognize the return address.
  102. He cuts his finger on the page of the book, the red rising from the sliver.
  103. He throws a book across the room at the roach.
  104. The morning light wakes him and he pulls the other pillow over his head, thinking of a nest as he falls back asleep

Saturday, September 12, 2009

i have drunk my weight in wine one thousand times

Your arms turned feathers, beta keratins
braided foreign and wrong. You took to sky
And became an ‘m’ in one thousand
Children’s drawings, one thousand hangings
On one thousand walls. One thousand bee stings.
I swear you were a finger width away
Last night as I checked the map. Mexico
Was periwinkle, stretching out below.

You have been lingering in my whiskey,
and I’ve stitched you in the cotton running out
Beneath the floorboards and I love the orange
silver of your shoulders. Leaves turn a shade
reminiscent of your collarbone.



If it came to blows, I would lay you out.

Heisenberg Changed our Lives in 1927 - A Prose Pantoum

My mother looks over and smiles. More than just teaching me how to sauté onions, she has taught me her sense of humor. I turn my head to look her full in the face and laugh. She looks beautiful in her sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up, her hair in a sensible ponytail.

She teaches me the lessons she has accumulated in her life here, in front of the stove, with the light under the hood sticking in the wrinkles growing out from her eyes. She has veins of gold in her face when she smiles. I think she is more beautiful to me like this. I still have dreams of my mother to this day - we have not seen her in five years.

I see her face, gilt gliding across the lines as she tracks me down in my sleep and reviews what she taught me. Eugene Tarnow believed that dreams were ever-present stimulations of long-term memory. During waking life, an executive cognitive function interprets these stimulations and sorts them as memory. My mother is standing there at the stove, illuminated with the light over the range, under the hood.

“Mom, what the hell are you doing in my house?” I say, padding into the kitchen from my dark bedroom. “Fixing dinner, what does it look like, smartass.”
She looks like she’s swimming in the soft, yellow, light that catches her hair - the sides swept back to keep them out of the way.
“Are you actually here?”

“Does it matter? It smells like you burned dinner.”
“I guess . . . I don’t know. I just.”
“It took me forever to find where you live.”
I walk over to a suitcase on the table.

“What . . . Mom. What is this?”
“You’re gonna come cook with me”
Inside is a wooden spoon and the pan I burned onions in earlier - the silver surface stained the deepest back where the onions carbonized.
“Come on, let’s go.” She says, leaving to pool of light to walk towards the front door.

“You should put on some clothes, and start sleeping in pajamas.” She adds, turning around to look back at me, one hand on the doorknob.
“Oh, right,” I laugh quietly and creep back into the bedroom.
“Hurry up!” She shouts from the living room, and I hear her walk back into the kitchen.
I hear the hollow click of the range light as I push my feet into moccasins and head back to the kitchen.

“Ah, dreaming,” I say, walking out onto the dark linoleum
I turn the range light on and smudge a line through the grease splatters on the stove. I turn the light off with my greasy finger and walk back to my room, tracing a line down the wall - I crawl into bed and fall asleep with my shoes still on. My mother looks over and smiles.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Add Forty to the Number of Chirps Produced in Fifteen Seconds by Oecanthus Fultoni

The stain does not take to the wood evenly. He thinks it has something to do with the polyurethane added to it. Also with the fact that the polyurethane is fast-drying. It leaves streaks behind the brush, clots on corners, forms tiny stalactites suspended from the bottom of the boards.
Woodworkers prefer natural oils like linseed and tung which have a hard-rubbed luster as opposed to polyurethane’s shine. Polyurethane is durable, water resistant, hard and abrasion resistant. It was cheaper at the hardware store too. That’s the main reason he got it. Later, he spends more money at the hardware store buying sandpaper and wood stain. This time without polyurethane. He sands the boards behind the house on the back stoop. He sits on the steps scrubbing a board with the sandpaper.
“How long have you been out here,” his roommate asks, stepping out the back door onto the stoop.
“Don’t even ask me,” he says and stops sanding, rolling his head from side to side to stretch his shoulders.
His roommate sits down on the edge of the stoop and he swings his legs over the side of the stairs to sit parallel to him.
“And don’t tell me how ironic it is that the time-saving stain is costing me time.”
“Don’t need to, you just did.”
“It is ironic, though,” he says.
“I know,” the roommate replies
“And I can’t help but wonder,” he continues, “that doesn’t it seem to be that way in life?”
“Yes?” His roommate answers, pulling a cigarette out of his pack and lighting it. He holds it out, saying,
“You need to calm the hell down.”
He takes the cigarette and moves the half-sanded board in his lap around behind him.
“No, seriously though, we develop technology, bond molecule to strange molecule, augmenting something we have found in nature to form a harder-working mutation.”
“Smoke that,” his roommate says, gesturing to the cigarette in his hand.
He continues, “We create something that accomplishes its goal with such dexterity and swiftness that it loses the feel of process we find in the natural. The sense that what you are enjoying has taken a long time to culture, to cultivate. That, that which is pleasing to your eye has been striving towards that aesthetic for some odd handful of time.” He stops and takes a drag.
“Are you stoned? Are you high, Claree?”
“Whatever, I’ve just been out here sanding for hours, just thinking about wood stain,” He says, rolling his eyes.
“Well, shut up and smoke that cigarette. You’re completely right but also out of control. You just need to stop thinking and be quiet.”
The night moves in around them as their silence gives it space. The thick black edging in at the pool of yellow thrown out by the back light.
His roommate stands and turns out the light, the grit of the concrete scraping quietly as he turns to reach the switch.
“Better,” he says, sitting back down.
Crickets call in the thickness of the backyard, interrupted by the whining of the tree frogs. The sound of the legs, one rubbing against the other sounds silver in the darkness, moving in a chorus of a thousand thousand.
“I was just thinking how the crickets sound like sleigh bells,” he says.
“Actually, me too. Now quiet and finish your smoking. “ His roommate says, a flame flaring in his cupped hand as he lights his own cigarette.

Friday, April 3, 2009

absentee shallot

spring is here.















It sprang right next to my dog.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

a link to the stitch















check out this amazing cross stitch by servotron.

four months of work.

amazing.

the merger of my two greatest loves. thread and video games.

i probably would have ripped out my eyeballs , but i admire the dedication

Monday, March 16, 2009

dessert alchemy.

made some desserts last night.

















taro root in sweetened coconut milk. (not me, farmer's market)
pineapple pistachio custard
blackberry meringue pie.


pineapple pistachio custard.
you'll need to first make a simple custard. scald two cups of milk (slowly, don't you dare burn that milk) with a dash of salt and half a cup of sugar. i used confectioners, but i'm sure plain white would work as well. just before the milk boils, turn off the heat. pour a little of the milk into five beaten egg yolks. then pour the mixture back into the pot with the custard. heat til thick. stir stir stir. and i always cheat and throw a package of gelatin in with it to ensure setting. cool.
once that's taken care of and in the fridge, just throw together a pack of pistachio pudding, add some chopped pineapple, and mix with the pudding. chill til you like it. it's delicious. promise.

blackberry meringue pie.
prepare a simple pie crust. about two cups of flour. a stickish of butter. blend together with a pastry cutter or two knives until you get frustrated, give up, and just start doing it with your hands. once that's mixed well, sprinkle fourish tablespoons of ice cold water and mix with your hands til dough forms a ball. wrap and refridgerate.
in a small saucepan, combine two cups of blackberries, some butter, 1/3 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of flour and spices as you see fit (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, garam marsala!?). you could also throw in some triple sec or grand ma. heat and stir and smash till you've got a lovely dark purple mash.
pull your dough back you. roll it out to 1/4 inch thick, cut a circle with your pie plate as a guide, fold the dough in half, place in plate and unfold. spoon in your lovely dark purple mash and then bake uncovered for thirtyish minutes at 400 or until you see bubbling. while the pie is cooking, i'd take those five egg whites you have from making the custard and put them in a chilled bowl with as much sugar as you like and some cream of tartar. beat it slow. get some peaks. and spoon onto your blackberry pie after it has cooled from its stay in the oven and then throw that pie in the oven again just long enough to get some nice browning. i usually have run out of time at this point and bake it for a minute and then throw it under the broiler while i count to fifteen.


let it all chill. put it on a plate. enjoy your purple green platter.










c'est bon, clean up the splatter.