Drying

On a silver, metal
Hook
In the shape
Of a “U”

Stretched out
Shallow
More like a bowl
Than the tall letter

A white towel
Hangs on
Just barely
To one end

June 30, 2021 at 02:06PM

Brewing tea

Beads of moisture
Burst
Into individual life
On the underside
Of the concave glass lid

At first, each bead
Is not even
Itself
In the pool
Of hot water
In the pot

Then the water
Evaporates
And travels
Through the air
From the hot pool
To the lid

On the lid
The bead is born into
Its individual life
Which it lives
In community
With the other beads

Thin borders of dryness
Separate them

Gravity pulls them
From the apex
Of the lid
Down toward
Whatever side
Is nearest

On their way
They cross the borders of dryness
Join
With other beads
And lose
Their individuality

Larger beads form
And grow
Even larger
With each bead added
To the mass
Until gravity pulls it
Down to the edge

Where it drops
Back into
The pool
Of hot water
Below

This process
Repeats itself

I am like a bead
Addicted to my ego

But I will join the others
In a suicide dive
Back to the water
Eventually

June 29, 2021 at 07:46PM

Mousetrap

With the metal bar
Pressed down upon
Its broken neck

The mouse died faster
Than its little mind
Could get from

The satisfaction
Of the cheese

To the pain
Of death

June 29, 2021 at 07:37PM

Leftover chili again

My forearms are flat
On the table
On either side
Of my bowl of chili

The wind blowing the leaves
And the sirens outside
Are too obvious

(But you have to understand
How constant
Those two sounds are
In the city)

I can hear her sighs
Coming through the open door
Of the bedroom
Across the hall

The dog upstairs
Runs back and forth
But doesn’t bark

The wind sounds like
A rainstick
Full of waves

The kitchen light
Makes a buzzing noise
That I’ve gotten used to

This bowl of chili is so big
I’d have to write for hours
To work up enough
Of an appetite

It’s quiet in a way
That makes that book
The Lightness of Being
Make sense to me
Even though I’ve never read the book

Just me and my chili
And the metal spoon scraping
The bottom of the bowl

There are moments of silence
In suspension

What makes them jarring
Instead of peaceful?

Knowing there are other parts
Of the world
That are loud
Even right now

And parts of my world
That have been loud
In the past

Is it only in contrast
That the silence
Strikes me?

Like the hardest
You could ever hit
A stone statue
With a pillow

The waves wash over
The sirens come for
The dog runs toward

Someone
Somewhere else

June 29, 2021 at 07:18PM

Dad

Remember when
We woke up early
To drive to that tournament
Out in the farmlands

You opened the garage
And we stood
Behind your truck

You breathed in,
Sighed, and said,
“The morning air
Is the best air all day”

You played rock songs
On the way
To pump me up

Slammed on the mat
And shouted, “Squeeze!”
When I had the other kid
In a headlock

I wish I would’ve won
Every match
You ever saw

If I could go back
And squeeze tighter
I would

June 29, 2021 at 05:08PM

Still wrong

They’re not
Who they are yet

Some of them
Think they are

But they’re still
Just
Playing the part

Others have no idea
Who they are

But these
I like better

Because at least
They’re not so sure
And still wrong

June 29, 2021 at 01:33PM

Of course, she is mine

It is hard to think of her
As being anyone else’s
Now that she is mine
And has been, for so long

It would be like
Someone telling me
That my mother
Is not my mother

I would tell them
They are wrong
Of course, she is my mother

Of course, she is mine
As if by blood

June 29, 2021 at 12:18PM

When I get it

I want
What I don’t have

When I get it
I am overjoyed

Nothing else
Could possibly be better

Eventually
I get used to it

I can’t taste it
Anymore

I eat so much
That I get fat

And then I want
To be skinny

When I get skinny
I am overjoyed

Nothing else
Could possibly be better

June 29, 2021 at 10:23AM

Damn dog

Farmer Jim’s wife
Lynn
Always let me
Eat their frozen
Country-fried steaks
Out of the freezer

It was the best part
Of my day
After picking cherries
Tying up tomatoes
Mowing the lawn

One day
I microwaved a steak
Put it on the bread
And sat down to eat
When I saw some customers
Through the window
At the shed
Out on the driveway

Which was another part
Of my job
To take their money
Bag their fruit
And be nice to them

So I left my food
Ran out there
Helped them
And came back
But my steak was gone!

I spun around
Looked on the floor
The plate was there
Had I not
Even made it?

I checked the freezer
But the box wasn’t there
I looked in the garbage
And there was the box
It was the last one

I looked down
And there
Was the old terrier
Named Pete
Looking up at me
As guilty
As a dog can be

June 26, 2021 at 06:20PM

Farmer Jim

Used to drive
A trailer-full
Of watermelons
Back from Georgia

He paid my brother and I
Cash
To wake up at 4am
And help him
Move the melons
From the trailer
To the cold truck

He’d stand in between
The trailer and truck
And hold each melon
On his knee
While he wrote a price
In permanent marker

“This is a biggun”
Holding it
On either end
Sizing it up
With a satisfied smirk
Squinting
In the shed light

17.00
He wrote on it
And he always underlined
The two zeroes

But nobody could read
His writing
At the market

Shoppers would ask
How much for this one
And they’d point

I’d look and
Make an attempt
To decipher
The markings
I already knew
Were illegible

Even if they hadn’t
Smeared
From the moisture
In the cold truck

I’d do my best
Farmer-Jim impression
Size it up
With a satisfied smirk
And say,
“That one right there
Is 20,
But I’ll give it to ya
For 18.”

June 26, 2021 at 06:07PM

Her hair

Pieces of her hair
Are everywhere

Tying together the tassels
At the ends
Of the hand towel

Twirled around
The shower pipes

Clogging
The drain

Interwoven
In the threads
Of the bedsheets

Stuck
To the bottoms
Of my socks

They latch on
And enmesh themselves
In the lives of things

Like she has
In mine

June 26, 2021 at 12:25PM

Delivery

The delivery man
Buzzes
Once, twice

And the footsteps come
Clop, clop
Creaking floorboards

The door downstairs
Swings open

A package gets dropped
On the floor

The door
Slams shut

The unit above ours
Goes back to what they were doing

The delivery man
Goes to another delivery

And we lie in bed
Waiting, listening

June 26, 2021 at 09:20AM

Spiritowel

The towels hang
On the drying rack

And meditate
Without moving

To become one
With the sun

Shining
Its wisdom

Through
The window

June 24, 2021 at 04:32PM

Nails, hammer, and glue

I opened the cabinet
To grab some nails
And a hammer
To hang a piece of art

I saw the bottle
Of glue
And almost grabbed
That too

As I remembered …

First, that
I had broken my glasses
And needed the glue
To fix them

And second, that
It was only in a dream

A dream, which I had not
Until that moment
Even remembered
Having had

Only in that dream
Had my glasses
Been broken

And I did not
In the same world
In which
I needed the nails
And hammer

For the art
As yet, unhung

Need the glue
For the glasses, which
Were never broken
In any world
Other than
That
Of my dream

June 22, 2021 at 05:55AM

Rolling r’s

At brunch David
Taught me how to
Roll my r’s
In Spanish

I erroneously
Rolled the “r”
In “naranja”
And David told me
It’s only for
The double r’s
As in “burro”
Which is Spanish
For donkey

David started to
Roll his tongue
And show me
How to do it
He said it’s not about
The tongue muscle
You just
Relax the tongue

But I still had
Food in my mouth
So I told him
To wait
Until I was finished
With my food
And then
I would try

Originally written: May 30, 2021

Moment invasion

One moment can’t
Hold up against
All the others
Attacking
The outside walls
Which define it

When the walls
Eventually crumble
And the surrounding moments
Invade and mix
The moments
Breed and assimilate

June 13, 2021 at 09:05AM

Photoshoot

“You see things
In a different way
On the shoot,”

Says the model
Drinking
After the shoot

Pontificating
About photo-taking,

What it means,
And how good
The cameraman was

June 12, 2021 at 07:56PM

Frozen strawberries

For her ranch water
I would have used
Ice cubes
But there were only
Four or five
Left in the tray
And I knew
We were going to drink more
So I unzipped
The bag
Of frozen strawberries
And plopped in
A few of those
Hoping
They would have
The same effect
As ice

June 12, 2021 at 07:51PM

How to lose it all

The world seems wide again
As I’ve just narrowly
Avoided disaster
Yet again

The allegations
Were not as serious
As I trumped them up to be
In my head

I can hold onto
My precious world
The way it is
For a little while longer

But each
Of these near-disasters
Are teaching me
How to lose it all

June 10, 2021 at 09:37AM

Mountain majesty

He opens the door
To the deck

Steps out
Onto the wood

Looks up
At the mountains

Bows his head
And ambles forward

Humbly
Approaching their majesty

– Krys in Big Sky 06/10/21

June 10, 2021 at 09:31AM

Deep breath

I was so worried
I wasn’t breathing

I realize now
As I’ve gotten the news

That what I feared
Isn’t true

And I take my first deep breath
In a while

June 10, 2021 at 09:12AM

The right question

About my writing
He says he wants to ask me
The question
Which he wishes
Others would ask him
About his music

This is the question—
“What question
Do you want me
To ask you
About your art?”

I cannot help but feel
That he is cheating

Isn’t digging through the dirt,
Clamoring through the confusion,
And finally finding
After much searching

Somewhat similar to
All the sunshine and rain
Required
Before a flower
Will unfold for you?

Did nature
Have it so easy
As simply having to ask
What it was
That the flower wanted?

Or did many flowers
Have to die
Before nature learned
The unfolding
Of a single flower?

Was it worth kneeling
In the soil
And watching
For every second
Of every day

To learn to ask
The right question?

June 09, 2021 at 12:00AM

Beauty becomes her

Other women, for me now, are beautiful insofar as they are like her.

When my friends talked about her, before I loved her for the first time, they said that she was beautiful.

Her physical form, for me then, aspired to participate in the higher form of Beauty.

Now, she has caught up and gone past, in her race with Beauty.

Anyone who is beautiful, for me now, is so in proportion to the qualities of hers which they possess.

When the faceless women in my dreams take off their clothes, they have her breasts, her milk chocolate skin, her hip bones that jut out.

When I see the face of another woman in a crowd, it is a beautiful face because it is like hers—dark curly hair, freckled skin, perfect white teeth.

In the beginning, she was beautiful. Now, beauty has become her.

Algorithmic art

Lake explains
How a machine-learning algo
Makes art

“The code
Prunes out what’s bad”

“It grows into
The right composition”

“It either ends up
Too random
Or not random enough”

Kyle argues back
On our behalf,

“It’s the same
As a human artist
Learning what feels right
From experience”

Lake responds,
“Those learnings
Are rules
That can be coded”

June 07, 2021 at 01:50PM

Almond butter on toast

When I stab
A knife
Into the jar
Of almond butter

There is really only
One thing
That can go wrong

Because I hold
The jar
Over the toast
On the plate

And once I’ve gotten
A glob
On the knife

I hold it
Over the jar
For a few seconds

Before I move the knife
Over and down
Onto the toast

—This way
If there is any drippage
It must fall

Either
Back into the jar
Or onto the toast

But there is
A terrible
Third possibility

That, in the time
I am moving
The knife

From over the jar
To over the toast,

A drip
Could fall
Onto the side of the jar

Which is really
The only thing
That can go wrong

June 07, 2021 at 10:58AM

Breakfast

In the morning
I work on my writing
For as long as I can
Before I eat

Because eating
Is the only thing
I know for sure
I’m doing right

June 07, 2021 at 10:41AM

Bored

At the cabin in Big Sky, we were often bored. Lake and I woke up early to work in the morning. I edited my poetry and Lake learned the formulas to make algorithmic art. We weren’t bored when we were working.

When Kyle woke up in the morning, he was almost immediately bored. He preferred to work at night, sometimes after midnight. He felt the nighttime was more conducive to producing his particular style of bass music that he described as “swampy.”

This morning, Kyle woke up, came upstairs from his bedroom in the basement, and then immediately laid down to take a nap on the shag rug in the living room.

At some point in the morning, we each make our own breakfasts in the kitchen. We take naps in the sun on the deck, on the ledge by the window, on the rug in the living room. We work on our laptops sitting at the dining table, standing at the kitchen counter, lying in the recliner.

Those are the only three definite things: eating, sleeping, and working. Other than those three, we walk around with our hands in our pockets. We pick things up, look at them, and set them back down. We look at things without picking them up. We sit down, stand up, and sit back down. We go outside onto the back deck, take some deep breaths of the crisp mountain air, and then come back inside.

We ask each other what we are doing—none of us have an answer to the question. We go upstairs into the loft to shoot a game of pool. We walk around with our hands in our pockets some more. We wonder if it’s too early to have lunch. We wonder if it’s too soon to distract one of us who has gotten into a flow working.

Being here in Big Sky and being bored makes me think about how busy we are most of the time, especially when we are working 9-to-5 jobs. Often motivated by either socially normative reasons (working a job, caring for others, not being lazy) or biologically necessary reasons (eating, sleeping), we are not accustomed to not knowing what to do with ourselves.

We are faced with a question that seems simple but can actually become complex, depending on how serious we are about getting it “right” and if we even believe there is a “right” answer in the first place. The question is this: what should we do?

Boredom is the state of not having an immediate answer to this question. Laziness is the state of having an immediate answer to this question and just choosing not to do it.

I enjoy being bored. It brings with it empty space and opportunity for creativity. There is less room for creativity when your time is scheduled with what you already know needs to be done.

Lying on the deck in the sun

There are at least
Three layers

—Sun,
Legs,
And couch cushions

But I cannot tell
Where exactly

The sun hits
The skin
Of my shins

The cushions
Press up against
My calf muscles

A general mass
Of warmth from the sun
And comfort from the cushions

And my legs
Somewhere, sensing
The warmth and the comfort

I know that
My legs rest
On top of the cushions

And the sun
Somehow
Warms them

But when I look
For my legs
In my mind

There is only the mass
Into which the three layers
Have melted

June 07, 2021 at 09:58AM

Don’t save it

In my travel bag
There are
A pack of gum
And a handful
Of cough drops
That have gone bad

The gum breaks up
Into grit
And the drops
Are fused
To their wrappers

All the times before
That I would have
Chewed a stick
Or sucked a drop
I said to myself
I’ll save it
For later

June 07, 2021 at 07:57AM

Frames

Other than the ones on walls filled with paintings or photographs, I see frames everywhere. Earlier I was lying by the pool and the umbrella framed the sky on one side. Now I’m lying on the couch on the balcony and there is a rectangular opening in the wall and along the bottom there is the top of a table and farther off there is the side of the building across from ours, so the sky is framed by the opening on the right and top, the table on the bottom, and the other building on the left. These frames occur all over where there are straight lines.

The most frames are in the cities where there are buildings, windows, roads, light poles, and other urban structures. Why do we frame paintings? Why must they end at the borders? Does it matter? The answer, I think, is the same for these frames that occur on their own. But you can only see the picture once. If you shift your gaze at all, the picture will change and you won’t be able to ever get the same one back.

Originally written: Wednesday, May 26, 2021, 5:38 PM

Ménage à trois

We met one of the three right away. We had just gotten to the condo, walked out onto the balcony, and talked about how great it was to be back, when she climbed up the pillar and across the branch-thatched roof of the balcony down and in front of ours. Gary seemed to know her, but he told us later that he had only met her earlier that day. David and I were surprised. The climb she made was not a safe one. Before she had swung her other leg over the iron fence and put both feet down on our balcony, she was already talking a mile a minute. She was high on coke, she hadn’t slept much the night before, and her other two friends were taking a nap in the condo below us.

Gary invited her and her friends to play volleyball on the beach with us that evening at 6. She said they would come and then she climbed back down.

She was late to volleyball. We waited for her and her friends by the fountain. She leaned over the railing on the third floor and said that they were coming, they were just going to be another two or three minutes.

Later that night, we got back from dinner and sat on our balcony. We sat there for an hour and talked and drank water. Then, around ten at night, we heard her voice, “Friends? Are you up there?” We said something to let her know that we were. And up she climbed.

She was even more drunk than she had been before. She talked. Then she swung her leg over the iron fence and stepped out onto the thatched roof. Ron was there. She slipped. We heard her squeal. I distinctly remember hearing one of the small branches snap in half. And then the smack of bare skin hitting glazed ceramic tile.

Originally written: Wednesday, May 26, 2021, 1:34 PM

Ocean vs. land

The ocean
Still holds its power
Over man

The land
Is being dug up,
Built over,
And otherwise shaped
By man’s desires

In the ocean
We cannot keep our grip
For long

Even the biggest boat
Can capsize

The ocean maintains
Her mystery
And her strength

Originally written: Wednesday, Jun 2, 2021, 6:50 PM

Plane surveying

Through a plane window
There are a few
Simple sights—
The sky, the clouds,
And the ocean

But the land
Is complicated
At least because of
All the man-made structures
—Roads and buildings

But the natural land
Is also varied

By the spines of mountains
And the ridges
Running down the sides

The flat lands
That are different shades
Of gold, brown, and green

And the lakes
And other land-locked
Bodies of water

Which would be as simple
As the ocean and the sky
Going off forever
As themselves
And never changing

But the land-locked
Bodies of water
Are defined by their shores

And so contribute
To the land
Being more detailed
Than the sky, the clouds,
And the ocean

Originally written: Wednesday, Jun 2, 2021, 6:41 PM

The winner’s speech

Honestly
I think a lot of it
Was luck

But the joke
You don’t realize
You’re the butt of
Until you finally
Get it

Is that being lucky
Can turn out to be
Just as unlucky
As everyone else
Thinks they are

Originally written: Tuesday, Jun 1, 2021, 2:56 PM

Sexy talk at dinner

At dinner she said
Something
And he said,
Oh
So she asked,
Do you like that?
Yea
When I say it
With my tongue
Flicking
My teeth
Like that
The trick
That some girls learned
Younger than others
And held more power
Over the world
Than they ever
Did again

Originally written: Sunday, May 30, 2021, 8:22 PM

Bee for free

The bee landed
On the rim
Of Greg’s glass

He leaned forward
And blew
On the bee
To get it
To fly away

But the bee
Fell into
The glass

And Greg
Flagged down
The waiter, Rubèn

To get
Another drink
For free

So the bee
Didn’t die
For nothing

Originally written: Sunday, May 30, 2021, 6:14 PM

Pillow

I lay on the couch
And played
With a pillow
Long, rectangular
And woven
With traditional
Mexican threads
Just to feel
The texture
With my fingertips
Holding the pillow
Above my head
Bringing it down
To my chest
To hug it
And have an experience
With an object
In space
Communicating
Its
Physical existence
To
My feeling

Originally written: Sunday, May 30, 2021, 3:03 PM

Glass pictures

I opened the cabinet
To place the wine glasses
Back on the shelf

The glasses
Already in there
Each reflected

A small picture
Of the room behind
In miniature

Originally written: Saturday, May 29, 2021, 10:50 AM

Young and old

The older people
Joined our dinner party of five
To make it eight
And after
The introductions
And the small talk
To figure out
Whether we had anything in common
And if not
If we could at least get along
The old people
After so many drinks
Started to thirst for more
For the youth
And us young
Started to want for some things
Too
That the old people had
Like money
And power and respect
So we sat there together with our drinks
Half drunk
And our empty plates
And sucked off each other

Originally written: Friday, May 28, 2021, 9:48 PM

Beauty and the geezer

The younger girl
Tested the older man
For potency
As far into the night
As he could go
If he could make it
All the way to sunrise
She would let him in
But he didn’t know
This was the test
And invented
Other reasons
Why
It wouldn’t work
And went to bed
If only
The old geezer
Would
Have known

Originally written: Thursday, May 27, 2021, 2:50 AM

Big moon

So good this night I
Try to breathe it all in through my nostrils
With my hands on the rails
Looking out at the biggest whitest moon
I have ever seen
So clear
I can see the light grey dark freckles
Like skin cancer on older skin
A boat bobs in the water in the moonlight
A smaller boat
Than all the other boats around it
Different music
Plays from different places
As everyone
Quietly enjoys the night
On their own

Originally written: Wednesday, May 26, 2021, 9:14 PM

Fascination

If I could foster
With others
The same fascination
That I have with
This beautiful girl
Sitting here
Saying anything
It doesn’t matter
I am as interested
As I ever was
In whatever else
Was supposed to
Hold my attention

Originally written: Tuesday, May 25, 2021, 5:42 PM

When it comes

I wrote some poems
On the plane
Even after I said I wouldn’t
Write on this trip
I wonder
If other writers
Know
When they are going to write
Or if
They are like me
And sometimes
It just comes

Originally written: Tuesday, May 25, 2021, 10:44 AM

Body parts

A lady in the seat behind me
On the plane
Talks
To the person next to her
About her body
And how
Her brain has not been doing so great
And one of her toes is swollen
As if
Her body parts
Were members of her family
Appendages apart
From herself

Originally written: Tuesday, May 25, 2021, 10:41 AM

Drink cart

The attendant came down the aisle
Rolling the drink cart
With her gloved hands on either side
Looking down
To the left and to the right
Shouting, “Elbows! Elbows!”

Originally written: Tuesday, May 25, 2021, 10:35 AM

One boat

Looking out of the plane window
And down at the ocean
I saw a solitary boat
I leaned forward in my seat
To see the ocean through the window
As far back as I could behind us
And then I leaned back
To see all the blue
As far forward as I could see ahead of us
And there was not
A single
Other
One

Originally written: Tuesday, May 25, 2021, 10:29 AM

The wind and the light

I went downstairs
And into the bedroom
To get my laptop charger
Out of my bag

I didn’t know
I was walking into
A dance
Set to music—

The cold wind blew
Through the window
I opened last night
To stay cool

The red curtains wavered
And shafts of warm light
Shot through
The dark bedroom

It was the chill
Of the cool morning air
Crisp in my nostrils

The way the light
Came through the curtains
In the brief moments
They were blown open

The color of the light
Yellow
Coming through the red
Like gentle orange fire

And then darkness again
When the breeze subsided
And the curtains went back
To being shut

I stood there
In the doorway
And watched all the love
Being made without me

I guess I’ve gotten
This misconception
That things are only happening
When we’re around
To make them happen

But the wind and the light
Lost their egos
Long ago

They play
With
Or without
An audience

June 06, 2021 at 06:11AM

He likes women

He likes women. That is his art, his joy, his purpose, his reason for living. He is attractive and friendly so it comes naturally to him. He is one of the lucky ones who has his abilities and his desires working in unison. He doesn’t have motivation for much else. He likes to go out looking for a new woman, to seduce her and make her love him, enjoy her love for a while, and then get tired of her and go looking for another. This is why he can’t commit. To commit to just one woman would be to give up his art, his joy, his purpose, his reason for living.

To live is to be challenged, to do again and again. We play the game until it gets dark and then the scoreboard resets in the morning. Nobody, not even the best, wants to win and then be done. You can also kiss your trophy so many times before the shine wears off.

Morning grouch

We will have plenty
Of time to talk
In the afternoon
My friend

The morning
Is for making
What music we can
In the silence
Of our solitude

So with all
Due respect
Don’t talk to me

June 06, 2021 at 05:45AM

Tight rope

A single thread
Of spider web
Stretched
From the table
To the ottoman
With a dewdrop
Weighing it down
In the center

A spider
Must have made
The leap
Across the chasm
In the night

June 06, 2021 at 04:56AM

Robin

A robin flew up
And landed
At the very top
Of a pine tree
With a worm in its beak
Squawking gently
Twitching its tail feathers
Stretching its wings
With erratic pumps

I could see it
So clearly
In contrast
To the light blue
Morning sky

I looked down
To write this
And then looked back
To write more
But the robin
Was gone

June 06, 2021 at 04:49AM

Time to work

I am awake
At 5am
I have energy
I will waste it
If I just lie here
And spin my wheels
Thinking about other things
I must
Get out of bed
And get to work

June 06, 2021 at 04:21AM

Mountain birds

In the morning
The many birds
Sang
Like children
On a playground
Make noise—

Because they can,
Just to hear themselves,
Or because they haven’t learned
To keep quiet
And only talk
When it’s intelligent

But these are mountain birds
Robins and finches
Nesting in the pines
And the rafters of cabins
Picking worms from the soft soil

They lack the education
That the pigeons in the city
Have learned
To keep quiet, conserve their energy,
And eat trash when they can

June 06, 2021 at 04:05AM

Candle killer

I screwed the lid
Onto the glass jar

While the wick
Was still burning

Watched the flame
Lose its vigor

And slowly shrink
Until the light was out

I felt
In the dark

Like I had murdered
An innocent

June 04, 2021 at 08:38PM

Myself

The man
Whom I write
Over and over
Is me
You see
I cannot escape from him
Even when
I look at others
I see myself

June 04, 2021 at 08:16PM

Stuck

Suspended
In this life
Viscous

So I can’t
Move much
Side to side

I’m stuck
Right where
I was born

June 03, 2021 at 06:30PM

Going out

Half dressed
For the night
—Hair done
Red lipstick
Dinner coat
But no pants

She poked
Two fingers
Between
The blinds
So she could see
Outside

As I
Was not joining her
This night
I lay
On the bed
And asked her,
“Are you waiting
For you car?”

She said, “No,
I’m just trying
To see what
The weather’s like.”

June 03, 2021 at 04:59PM

Construction noise

The construction crew
At the job site
Across the street
Must have
Taken off today

I can hear the leaves
Blowing down the hill
Scratching on the cement,

The soft wind
Whistling around the edges
Of our bay window,

And even the light buzzing
Of complete silence
For brief moments

—Sounds that,
For as long as
The construction project
Has gone on,

I haven’t realized
Have been drowned out
By hammering, sawing,
Nailing, shouting,

And other sounds
Of industry

Which usually
Make me feel guilty
For lying in bed
Instead of getting up
And doing something

But today
I can take the day off too
And sleep in

June 03, 2021 at 09:33AM

I know that guy

The guy in front of me in line for customs at the SFO airport pointed to a different guy at the window talking to the customs agent and said to his girlfriend, “I know that guy.”

“I know his face, but I don’t know his name. He went to my high school.”

“He tried out for the wrestling team.”

“His friends and my friends were in the same group but we never met each other.”

“You know those type of people? People you know but you don’t know,” he asked his girlfriend.

“Yea,” she said. “I know those type of people.”

The guy in line continued to look at the guy at the window and then he said, “Maybe it’s not him.”

She only sees herself

She looks at a photo of them
From years ago
And says it’s a good photo
We know
She was looking at herself
And no one else in the photo
When she said that

June 01, 2021 at 06:39PM

Planter’s patience

Holding a seed
In the palm of his hand
He could see the tree
It would become

Or so he thought
To save myself
The time and energy
He would spend planting

Who can tell, other
Than the many days
Of sunshine
And rain

June 01, 2021 at 02:04PM

Two salesmen

Two salesmen
On vacation
Talk to each other
About their products
The features
And how they really
Help their clients
As if they really
Care about
What they do for work
When all they really
Care about
Is their next vacation

June 01, 2021 at 11:42AM

Margarita Monday

On Memorial Day
An American holiday
Which didn’t mean much
To the Mexicans
In Todos Santos

Except in the same way
That anything from the U.S.
Influenced Mexico

We drank margaritas
That weren’t very good
Which we already knew
Would be the case
When we asked the waiter
Where he was from
And he said Seattle

We read love poetry by Neruda
In English
And it was already good
And then we read it
In Spanish
I didn’t understand
But it was still better
Because of the music
Of the words together
In the original language

May 31, 2021 at 04:26PM

Jido

Was a drummer
I locked eyes with
Whose band played
On the open roof
Of the restaurant
During dinner

Afterward
He was outside
Drinking a beer
And smoking a cigarette

My friend nudged me
To say hi to him
Which is how
I learned his name

My Spanish was bad
And his English
Was just good enough
To ask me
If I liked music
I said yes
And then I said sí
He asked if I played an instrument
I said no

But wish that I could have said yes
So that we would have had
Something to talk about
Though I wouldn’t have been able
To express myself anyways

So we shared a brief
Mostly-wordless moment
After the sun had gone down
In the street of Cabo

He drank his bottled beer
Leaning against the wall
Outside of the restaurant
Waiting for his band to go back on

And I, full from dinner
With my hands in my pockets
Feeling much less talented
Than the man I was admiring

He wasn’t even aware
Of how perfectly himself
He was being

May 31, 2021 at 04:23PM

Mary Beth

A sweet
Old lady
Shop owner
We met
In Todos Santos

Told us
She grew up
In San Clemente

The only people
There
Were jarheads
And surfers

Her mom said to her
When she was young,

“Mary Beth,
Why don’t you
Bring home
A nice marine
Instead of all
These surfers?”

May 31, 2021 at 04:22PM