I was listening to him just fine, until I realized I was looking at his left eye. It was blue, encased behind the one lens of his glasses, staring straight at me. I thought to myself, Can he tell I’m just looking at his one eye. So I switched and started looking at his right eye—also blue, also encased behind glass. Well this isn’t any better. Where am I supposed to look? Where was I looking before, when I was listening to him just fine. I was so worried about where I was looking, I wasn’t paying as much attention to what he was saying. So my cues were getting off. I started laughing, nodding, smiling, shrugging at the wrong moments. I kept searching all over his face for a place to unconsciously rest my eyes so that I could focus on what he was saying. Eventually, I must have found somewhere. Because I stopped thinking about it, and just listened.
Month: September 2021
Grandpa talking about his sister
“There’s this book 1776 by David Mcullough,” my grandpa was telling me. “You really should read it. I would give you my copy, but I already gave it to my sister. She ain’t gonna read it though. She’s a meathead. That’s what we used to call her, meathead.”
My mom chimed in, “Well, then what did they used to call you, Dad?”
“Bobby. They would call me Bobby.” We all laughed. My grandpa’s name is Bob.
“Anyways,” Grandpa would always say this word to continue his story. “Anyways, she was a flower child.”
“She brought this one guy to Thanksgiving one year. He was wearing a military jacket down to his ankles and a beard down to his belt. He wouldn’t eat the turkey. He said he was vegetarian. But he was putting gravy on his potatoes. So I said, then don’t eat any of that gravy either. That’s got turkey in it too.”
“She dated another guy who drove an eighteen-wheeler. He would park it outside the house. One day, I think he even drove the kids to school in it.”
“She was so far to the left she was going to fall off the earth.”
Good thing it was the butter
My mom was baking banana bread earlier today. She already had four overripe bananas set out on a plate on the counter. Then she went over to the fridge, opened the door, and got out a stick of butter in one hand and two eggs in the other. On her way back to the counter, she dropped the butter. It thudded on the hardwood floor. She bent down, picked it back up, and examined it. One corner was smashed in. Other than that, it was fine, still usable.
Alternate titles:
Better that it was the butter
Good thing it was the butter
Better than the eggs
At Swarner Park on a Thursday
In the park at two in the afternoon on a Thursday, it was just me, the landscaping crew, and some birds circling overhead. The birds looked like seagulls, but I knew they couldn’t be, because where was the sea? The only body of water in the park was a pond smaller than a parking lot.
I was walking on the paved pathway. One of the riding mowers was coming my way, mowing the grass along the edge of the path. The guy driving, shut off the blades and swerved wide into the field, in order to avoid throwing up grass clippings in my face. I waved and nodded at him in thanks. He nodded back but didn’t wave. He had his hands on the levers.
Wow
When I go to the park, I usually walk clockwise around the trail. Today, I walked counterclockwise. Wow, what a thrill.
The lassoed bull
She thought she was the one who had finally lassoed the bull, but she was really just the one who was there at the end. Before her, he needed a harem, and would settle for nothing less. But he became tired of their jealousy, realized it would be easier to have just one. The society was organized such that it would be more simple and easy if he was just with one. He realized this over time. And his potency had diminished over time. He didn’t need a harem anymore. He couldn’t go round after round. He could only go run one round per week. And by then it just made sense to have only one.
Coin-op laundromat on California Street
At the coin-op laundromat across the street from our apartment on California, the machines didn’t always work. So after I had all our clothes loaded in, the door shut and handle twisted, all 29 quarters pushed through the slot, and the START button pressed, then I would take one step back, cross my arms, put my chin on my chest, and wait, looking through the circular, silver-rimmed glass door, checking for three things. First, for the clothes to start spinning. Then, for water to cascade down the glass. Finally, for their to be suds in the water. I added the last step after I forgot to put soap in the machine one time. That was my own fault, had nothing to do with the machine not working.
Note
Sometimes, when I’m feeling good, I throw my arms up in there air, like I’m forming the ‘Y’ in the ‘YMCA’ dance. I did it today when I was walking down the hill on the sidewalk that runs along Johnson Drive. It was ninety degrees and the sun was shining and I had my shirt off. I had also just realized, as I passed by the Johnson County Library, that it was within walking distance from our house, if I ever wanted to put my laptop and some books in a backpack and bike over and work there for the day.
Killing squirrels runs in the family
My dad shoots squirrels in our backyard with a .22-caliber pellet rifle. At first, my mom agreed with me, that we shouldn’t kill other living creatures just for sport. But then the squirrels started tearing up her flowers, and that was enough to change her opinion. Today, my sister got home from school while my mom and I were baking oatmeal raisin cookies. We heard the garage door open and saw her car parked in the driveway, but she didn’t come up the stairs. My mom asked, “What’s she doing?” I went out and looked through the glass door to the deck and saw a sixteen-year-old girl with pigtails, still wearing her school uniform (plaid skirt and burgundy polo), carrying a shovel with a dead squirrel on it to toss it over the back fence. I told my mom what she was doing. She said, “Well, she is her father’s daughter.” When she came up the stairs, I asked her, “How many did you get?” She said, “Two. I hit another one, but he kept running.”
Cool mom
Pulled into the pickup lane at the Christian middle school, driving a black SUV with the driver side window rolled down, singing, “The hippies on the bus go puff, puff, puff … puff, puff, puff.” Every time she said the word puff she leaned her head to either sad in a little dance. The mess of blonde hair tied on top of her head fell to either side. She was wearing a tie-dye shirt too. I couldn’t believe it. Maybe in San Francisco. But here, in Kansas? She looked young too. Maybe she was late-twenties, early-thirties. I thought to myself, there’s no way this woman is about to pick up her kids from this Christian school. Then again, maybe she wasn’t a mom. Maybe she was an older sister.
Imaginary friend
I thought the dog was lying next to me, while I was working at the desk in the basement. I could see his furry body out of the corner of my eye, curled up on the carpet. I went on typing and felt comforted by his presence. I had my headphones on, but I didn’t have to worry about being caught off guard because I knew he would jump up and bark if anyone came down the stairs. I finished a paragraph and knelt down to crawl over and scratch his belly. As I extended my hand, I realized it was only his toy stuffed squirrel lying next to me on the carpet the whole time—comforting me, protecting me.
That had been his nickname for her
She watched him on the televisions screen, dressed in a tuxedo, looking older than she remembered, more gray in his beard, but still the same sincere smile. He accepted the award and gave a speech that she knew was written for him, because it was chocked full of the type of platitudinal statements that he despised.
After the ceremony, a reporter caught him walking out to his limo. She leaned against the bodyguard’s forearm and asked him, “Sean, congratulations! Is there anything you want to say to the people watching at home?” He walked past the reporter, but then turned around as if he had just thought of something. He looked straight into the camera lens and said, “I still love you, little goose.”
She dropped her glass.
Ah man, now we can’t play no more
When we were young we used to play all the ball games at our cul-de-sac, baseball, basketball, kickball. Along the curb of the cul-de-sac was a rain gutter. We would play until the ball would roll into that gutter and then if we didn’t have a back-up ball we were done playing for the day and we had to wait for our dad to get home. We would wait to see his pick up truck pulling in the driveway and then we would go out in the garage and tell him and he would get a crowbar out of his toolbox and walk over to the top of the gutter and loop it under the handle of the big heavy metal sewer cover. Then one of us would have to go down the ladder into the bottom of the sewer to get the ball. It was real scary down there, just a concrete shaft going about 10 feet down. Then at the bottom of the shaft, there was a hole about one or 2 feet wide where the water flowed through. One time I looked down the hole and it was just black. I could see no end and I imagined having to crawl all the way through it and shuddered. Then I would climb back up the ladder with the ball and my dad would move the big heavy cover back into place until it would fall with a heavy clink into its circular place.
My first accepted script
The editor-in-chief turned over the first page and creased the stapled corner—that was a good sign.
“Who’s this character?”
“He’s my dad.”
“Can you write more about him?”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“He’s dead.”
“Well bring him back to life!”
I stood there, shocked. Even for Waterbee, that was a calloused comment.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” He didn’t skip a beat. “Go, write, we have an open slot to fill next week.”
I turned around and was halfway out the door when Mr. Waterbee said, “Oh yea, and Jefferson … “
“Yes, sir?”
“Can you tell Jones to come in here? I’m going to tell him you’re moving into his office.”
In the park again
With my hand shoulder width apart on the crossbar of the soccer goal I pull myself up and tell my chain is above the bar and then let myself slowly back down. On the way up, there is a brief moment of shade from the sun as my eyes are parallel with the bar. The oak tree to the left of the goal cast a shadow three times a tight across the field small soccer fields are painted out with white lines in the grass the yellow blue orange and red corner flags blow languidly in the barely perceptible win father off players practice on the baseball diamond. One player runs out into the outfield wearing a black cap and a red shirt picked up the ball turns and throws it back to the infield.
What else, when you have it all
“I didn’t mind the poverty, but now the money has come, and I don’t mind it either,” he said, seeming not uncomfortable in his smoking jacket, a cigar stuck between the fingers of his hand resting on the white tablecloth.
“What about your music?” the interviewer asked. “Has your composing changed at all since you’ve started to receive recognition?”
The composer exhaled a cloud of smoke and, veiled behind it, looked down as a lock of his perfectly combed hair fell over his forehead. His hand was shaking as he raised it to smooth the deserter back into uniformity.
“Ah, yes, the music is going well. I have much more time now, so I can sit in my study undisturbed and work.”
“It has been almost two years now since your last symphony. Are you working on anything new currently?”
“Would you like a drink, my friend?” He raised his hand and signaled for the waiter.
Whaaaaa
The fan rotates side to side automatically as its blades spin and circulate fresh evening air coming in through the open window. My mom said I have to be careful with the window open because spiders will come inside this time of year. When the fan gets to the power of its rotation when it faces me seated on my meditation cushion, my shirt blows like a sail on a ship. I alternate between focusing on my own breath and the breath of the blades blowing. It’s almost midnight. It’s dark in the basement. The door to my room is open. But I’m less afraid than I’ve been before. For one, I double-checked that all the doors in the house are locked. For two, if I only focus on my breath it’s impossible to think of any scary thoughts.
Lavender oil
The world flipped upside down and the drop of lavender oil almost fat enough to fall got sucked back into the bottle while everything else came crashing down.
Many me
In the reflective dial on the washing machine, I see my face, as I reach down to open the drawer and take out the plastic box of floss.
While flossing, I look closer at the dial. There are two of me, one in the mirror in the dial, and another just in the dial (not in the mirror, but between the mirror and the surface of the dial).
I look back at the mirror. The dial is in the mirror too. And there are two of me, one in the dial in the mirror, and another just in the mirror (not in the dial, but between the dial and the surface of the mirror).
I notice the lever on the toilet is also reflective, but I look away before I can meet another one of me.
Only one of me can walk out of this bathroom.
Fifteen minutes of fame
There’s no ending yet, but there might be one later, so keep writing, beginning and seemingly endless middle. Because the rosy good-ending glasses through which you’ll look back down at the muddy valley through which you crawled up to the peak will cut out whatever doesn’t fit within your allotted time to speak on the late night talk show when the host asks, “So how’d you do it?” Everyone’s at home watching and the producer won’t let you give the honest answer, “You just had to be there.”
Then you will see clearly to remove the speck
She is on her second glass of wine, maybe her third. The empty bottle is on the counter. I don’t know if the bottle was full when she started. Or if someone else had a glass. The doctor has told her not to have any alcohol. I wonder why she won’t listen. People are set in their ways, I suppose.
I pull the heat pack out of the microwave and walk over to the couch to lie with it underneath my back. Looking up at the ceiling, I see it—the beam in my own eye. I laugh to myself. The doctor has told me not to work so much. I stood up at my desk and worked all night tonight. I am set in my ways, I suppose.
Note
I drank tea with valerian root before bed. That must have been what stimulated the dreams. I was telling my friends about an experience I’d had earlier in my life. I told them, honestly, I could not remember whether it had actually happened or if it was just a dream. Now that I am awake, thinking about it, I am sure that it was a dream, an older dream to which I was referring in this more recent dream. I’ve heard that we cannot always distinguish our dreams from our lived experiences. After ample time, they are all vague memories, just the same. This dream, the older one, I had not once recalled in my waking life until now, as I recall it only because it was first recalled by my dream self.
Untitled
I had a page pulled out of the newspaper with a column that I liked. After positioning it on the wall and making sure it was square with the top of my desk, I started pushing a thumbtack through the top right corner. It went through the pages with ease, but when the pin met the wall its progress halted. Maybe it’s a stud, I thought to myself. So I pressed harder, all the blood rushing from my thumbnail turning white, the plastic head of the tack digging in to the skin of my thumbprint, the joint of my thumb bending back to the point of hyperextension.
And it still wouldn’t go in. But if I stop now and take my thumb off the tack, I thought to myself, then the pages will fall off the wall and I’ll have to go through positioning them again. I couldn’t give up. I was resolved. I had to press on. Even if my thumb breaks it will have been for a noble cause, I told myself. So I took a step back, reset my feet, and drove all my strength up from my legs, through my torso and arm, into my little lionhearted thumb.
In that moment, my life had meaning. There was a river bed for all my blood to flow, a singular purpose for my mind to concentrate—a point to all my power.
It didn’t matter who would win. I had brought my sharpened thumbtack to the battlefield and the wall had met me there with its impenetrable shield and we had done battle, fighting for our rights—I, to decorate and domesticate; the wall, to remain native and naked.
I started to sweat. I could feel my thumb joint bending back, about to break. My heel throbbed at the point where it was driven into the carpet, drawing up the force that coursed through my braced body. I took a deep breath, bellowed a battle cry, and lunged forward.
Slumped with my back against the wall, sliding down to sit. I looked at my thumbprint and there was a circular, red-rimmed indentation.
Just as I was about to give up, it went in all at once.
I am that I am
It is difficult for me to answer when people ask me what I’m doing. When they give up on helping me to summarize the ambiguity of my present activities, they start to ask about my future, “Well, do you have a plan moving forward?” I want to say, “Yea, I do. Next Tuesday I’m going frisbee golfing with my friend Jake. Oh, and I’ve got a dentist appointment on Thursday.” Then surely they would roll their eyes and move on to find someone else more sure of themselves. See, they would move right along with their customary questioning if I were to say I’m going to school or I’m an accountant at Joe & Schmo Inc. It would not be acceptable for me to say, “I am that I am.” And if I was feeling really cheeky, I might add, “You are that you are.” But they have no idea. And I have only just begun to realize. And so it is.
Fall
After I cut all the leaves in the yard to shreds with the mower, I went inside for a drink of water. When I came back out, I saw that new leaves had fallen. They were yellow leaves, which confused me. I looked up in the trees and most of the leaves still on the branches were green. And the leaves previously on the ground, since mulched by the mower, were brown. Whence then did the yellow leaves come? I pondered and thought perhaps the green leaves turn yellow before they fall off. And then they turn brown as they lie on the ground dying.
Empty
In lanes parallel to the street in the front yard and perpendicular in the back yard, I mowed. Just as I was one lane away from finishing the back yard, the mower sputtered and died. I unscrewed the gas lid and looked inside. There was only soaked sediment in the black and nearly dry bottom of the tank. I walked into the garage and shook each of the red containers on top of the toolbox. I took the one with the most, walked out to the exhausted machine, and gave it a drink. I pulled the cord and a cloud of black smoke billowed from the exhaust. The engine roared with the new life that only a meal and some rest can give. I pressed the blade initiator and pieces of acorn and shreds of leaf shot out in all directions. Then I pressed the clutch and we were off to complete our conquest, beheading every living member of the grass nation.
Picking up sticks
Picking up sticks in the backyard, I understand my father’s work ethic. It is pleasant to have something to do, especially something that involves being outdoors and is something that you can finish and clearly say, “There, it’s done.”
When we were kids, he would tell us to pick up sticks before he mowed the yard, but we never wanted to. There was always so much else to do. We could be playing with our friends, watching TV, riding our bikes, shooting hoops. Picking up sticks wasn’t fun. We only did it begrudgingly out of obedience. Even then, we did the bare minimum to pass Dad’s inspection (which we often failed).
Now, it’s all work. What’s fun is productive, useful. So I can either sit inside and work on my laptop or go outside and pick up sticks. Picking up sticks is less complicated. And I get to be outside, soaking up some sun and stretching my sore back.
What if
I don’t want her to be pregnant. I’m not ready to have a kid. But if it turned out that she was, then maybe it would be a sign—that I shouldn’t have left. Otherwise, I won’t hear from her. She’ll go on with her life and I’ll go on with mine. We’re both too stubborn to be the one to reach back out, to wordlessly admit that we need each other more than either of us are vulnerable enough to admit. She would be a good mom. I’m almost ready to be a dad, maybe. Before I left, I didn’t think that I was. Now that I’m gone and I’ve been thinking of only the best parts of our time together, I feel like we could do anything together.
Writing fiction
While I stand in the park, I start to understand fiction, I think. The fountain splashes into the unseen pond over the hill, the cicadas in the trees ceaselessly sing, the coach shouts “Go!” to the group of kids practicing soccer. I watch and listen as each of these stories remain boring. I need for
One of the walker’s would let their dog go down to drink from the pond, and then an alligator would burst from the surface and eat the dog.
Or the cicadas would stop singing in fear, and a moment of silence would ensure just before a tyrannosaurus red breaks through the trees.
Or the soccer coach would say something cruel to one of the kids and that kid’s dad would jump up out of his lawn chair and punch the coach in the face.
Perhaps none of these stories are believable.
Perhaps there is a climax here. I just can’t find it.
So how long do I wait before I start making stuff up?
Washington hiking voice memos 09/15/21
On the trail, my granola bar slapping, plastic crunching, in my pocket. Branches and leaves hanging over the trail, reaching out to touch my shins. One longer step over areek, crisscrossing the trail. Fallen pine cones, tumbled rocks, broken twigs on the trail. Steps made of logs Up and up in elevation, steep. Cobwebs, stuck to my arms and legs. Like this trail hasn’t been walked in a while. Breathing heavy between words, holding my phone and speaking to it. Trunks cut in half by the rangers. Some broken up, crumbled, their red, woody innards spilling out.
Part 1:
The meditation of the trail. Step, step, step, step.Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. Fallen pine needles. Exposed rocks and roots. Dusty shadows of trunks. Boughs, branches, leaves above, shaking only slightly. The roar of the river far away. The wind and the leaves rustling. The footprints of those still ahead. Stepping straight forward, for the most part. No decisions necessary, except for step, step, step. Left, right, left. The water in the bottle in my left hand, sloshing. The sound of the sand shifting beneath my shoes, making footprints of my own. Meditation made easy by the singularity of the path, only one direction to go—forward and up. Step, step, step is the only decision. Stopping only when a chipmunk in the trail found some food, picked up the food in its paws, and hopped up the rocks beside the trail to sit back on its haunches and munch.
Part 2:
It’s more sustainable to do what you love and to be yourself. If you do something that you don’t love, or that you don’t identify with, you might be able to get along doing it for a while, to make money, to impress somebody, or to survive. But eventually, you’ll get tired of it. Because what you actually love will be calling you and your true identity will be pulling you away.
The energy it takes to resist these other callings will take away from the energy that you can put in to what you’re pretending to love or who you’re pretending to be. Whereas when you do what you love or be yourself, though it might not be lucrative, successful, or impressive in the beginning, you at least don’t have to worry about carrying on because you are doing the most natural thing—pursuing your passions, being who you are, which is just as natural as eating when you are hungry or drinking when you’re thirsty. You will always eat so long as you live. You will always drink too.
Then, eventually, success will be inevitable. I don’t know if I can explain why success is inevitable.
I just believe it. Maybe it’s just a principle of business, of marketing. Maybe because of consistency. You build up your brand. You work your way into a niche. And people have enough time to realize who you are and what you’re about and what you create. And they can tell your friends about it. And it just takes time.
Or maybe it’s because other people are attracted to those who are themselves. I once listened to a Bukowski interview in which he talked about why people love horror films and documentaries about serial killers because those people do whatever they want, even if it’s against the law or immoral. People have a desire in themselves to be like that, to do whatever they want. Deep down they resent that they have to obey, they have to fit in line, they have to follow the rules.
Part 3:
The roots weaving, exposed, across the surface of the trail. Worn smooth, like leather. Gnarled, twisting, covered in dust.
Part 4:
Where human feet flayed back the soil, exposing veiny roots. Some broken, maybe kicked and cracked. Others reach above with space between themselves and the trail, and then dive back down into the dirt. Next to a large tree, many extend out, like many fingers, reaching down this trail. Grasping, crawling towards the river, parched. I wonder what messages they send through the system to the deeper roots,
submerged—dank, dark, hydrated. These roots exposed on the trail are on the front lines, doing the dirty work in a foreign land, keeping the pipe open, protecting the flow of water.
Suicidal grasshopper
I happened to look where I was about to put my foot down just in time to see there was a grasshopper in the shadow of my imminent step. I recognized its hind legs, bent into the trademark triangles of its kind. It waited, poised to live up to its name, until right before
Pavement hopper
Grasshopper
Evaded
Centimeters away
… from m,making his way to a new life
He could be a man, he could be a blade of grass, but he would be different.
In the morning in the basement back home
My brother took the workout bench to college with him. He took the thirty-five-pound dumbbells too. Those were the heaviest we had in the set, but they still weren’t heavy enough for bench press. He took the desk and the mattress from the bedroom too. There are wide open spaces on the carpet where they used to be.
Hanging on the walls are pictures of us when we were kids, standing up in frames on the counter shelves. In the corner, thousands more photos are boxed, labeled with our names, and organized on shelves.
The other three boys won’t be home until the holidays. It’s just me, my sister, mom, and dad at home.
A large two-foot-diameter clock ticks, ticks, ticks but you can’t tell the hands are moving because there’s no second hand, only a minute and an hour hand.
The basement is dark. The only light comes through a window smaller than the clock. Leaves blow on the trees in the backyard.
In the morning in the basement back home
My brother took the workout bench to college with him. He took the thirty-five-pound dumbbells too. Those were the heaviest we had in the set, but they still weren’t heavy enough for bench press. He took the desk and the mattress from the bedroom too. There are wide open spaces on the carpet where they used to be.
Hanging on the walls are pictures of us when we were kids, standing up in frames on the counter shelves. In the corner, thousands more photos are boxed, labeled with our names, and organized on shelves.
The other three boys won’t be home until the holidays. It’s just me, my sister, mom, and dad at home.
A large two-foot-diameter clock ticks, ticks, ticks but you can’t tell the hands are moving because there’s no second hand, only a minute and an hour hand.
The basement is dark. The only light comes through a window smaller than the clock. Leaves blow on the trees in the backyard.
In the morning in the basement back home
My brother took the workout bench to college with him. He took the thirty-five-pound dumbbells too. Those were the heaviest we had in the set, but they still weren’t heavy enough for bench press. He took the desk and the mattress from the bedroom too. There are wide open spaces on the carpet where they used to be.
Hanging on the walls are pictures of us when we were kids, standing up in frames on the counter shelves. In the corner, thousands more photos are boxed, labeled with our names, and organized on shelves.
The other three boys won’t be home until the holidays. It’s just me, my sister, mom, and dad at home.
A large two-foot-diameter clock ticks, ticks, ticks but you can’t tell the hands are moving because there’s no second hand, only a minute and an hour hand.
The basement is dark. The only light comes through a window smaller than the clock. Leaves blow on the trees in the backyard.
Locking eyes
Standing with everyone else, waiting to board our flight to Kansas City, I caught her looking at me. In that moment, I could have either looked away or held her gaze. I chose to hold, and so did she. With our eyes locked, we had our moment. I was the first to look away. I turned and resumed my pacing back and forth. Unintentionally, I looked back. I don’t know what I would have done if our eyes locked again. But she wasn’t looking at me. She had her arms crossed, staring forward. I think she was miffed with me for looking away. Blonde, pretty, and sure of herself, she must have been used to being the first to look away.
Holy man on the plane to Salt Lake City
While I was waiting in the aisle, I looked to my right and saw him in a middle seat. Even without the white woven cap on his shaved head, the unpretentious reading glasses, the long, grey, scraggly beard, and the white robes hemmed with ornate gold lace, I could have still told you that he was holy, by the way he had his arms crossed and folded up under his armpits, his eyes closed, his head nodding slightly forward. He was not sleeping. He couldn’t have held that posture if he was. While everyone else watched their screens, tapped on them, listened to their headphones, he sat there in silence and prayed for us all.
Note
When we were going steady, I wanted something new. Now that we’ve just broken up and I’m in a car on the way to the airport, a box full of all my stuff in the trunk—now I just want one of our normal days. Whoever woke up first would make two mugs of hot lemon water and then roll out the yoga mat for morning stretches and leave the mat out for the other, sleeping in.
We would each have our alone time in the mornings, typing on our laptops, sipping lemon water. Sometime before noon, one of us would get bored and go
The day I left
“It’s time to say goodbye,” I said.
She pushed out her chair from the dining room table and stood up. I walked over and hugged her.
I held her against me, her cheek bone resting against my chest, the top of her head fitting perfectly under my chin. I raised my hand from her back and held her head in a more gentle, caring embrace.
“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Thank you … so much … for everything. You are beautiful. You are smart. You are kind.”
I didn’t expect to cry, but I suppose you can’t really say words like that and really mean them when you’re leaving your lover and not cry.
With one tear on my cheek, I said, “I love you.”
Then, “Can I have one last kiss?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want to make it more difficult than it already is.”
I hugged her and held her, more softly, more tenderly than my customary tight and constrictive embraces.
I dropped my arms and turned around to pick up my box. She followed me to the door. I opened it and she held it open behind me.
“Bye, Cole,” she said.
When she used my first name it shot like an arrow through my heart. She never called me by my first name. She always called me “babe.”
“Bye,” I said, with as much care and love and gratitude and solemn regret as I could fit into that one word.
She closed the door behind me. I don’t even remember stepping down the stairs.
When I got out by the curb and set my box by my feet, I looked down and noticed one of her dark curly hairs was wrapped around my fingers. I saw the last part of her holding on to me and I wanted to turn around and march right back up the stairs and set my box down and stay.
But I walked over to the car. The driver opened the trunk. I picked my box up and put it in, walked around, opened the door, got in, and we drove away.
A portrait of the artist as a young girl in the park
She looked to be sixteen or seventeen. I couldn’t tell because she exhibited the typical unsure-of-themselves behavior of a kid out on her own. Her hair looked like she hadn’t learned the tricks that older women know to make it pretty. Her body was also smaller like she hadn’t finished growing. She wore a black crop-top, black jeans, and white sneakers. And here’s what I didn’t get: she sat on the asphalt walkway and leaned against the chain-link fence. Why not in the grass like everyone else? Surely the asphalt and the fence were less comfortable. But perhaps she was aware of the aesthetic. She knew her black outfit would look better in contrast with the grey than the green, the industrial feel of the metal fence would complement the dirt on her sneakers, and the sketchbook she pulled out of her backpack would cohere all the elements into the image of a young artist already aware that discomfort is sufferable for good art.
An afternoon at Alta Plaza Park in San Francisco
When we got to the park, there were still splotches of shade in the grass, shaped by the cirrus clouds, stretching languidly like man’s hand to reach God in the Da Vinci. We laid out our blankets on the other side of the park, where less dogs were unleashed, and we could see the skyline and watch the tennis players. First, we leaned up on our elbows, cracked our cans of carbonated water, and drank those until they were gone. She asked, “What do you want to do for dinner tonight? I started to answer, but then she interrupted, “No, wait, nevermind. It’s too early to think about dinner.” Then I tried to read, but the clouds had already given up on reaching the heavens, fallen down into the bosom of Twin Peaks. So the sun was shining through too bright to keep my eyes open looking at the page. I rolled up my jacket for a pillow, laid back, and closed my eyes. I could hear whop … bounce, whop … bounce, whop until there was a bounce and then a “dang it” instead of a whop. I don’t know how long I listened to the back-and-forth of the tennis ball before I fell asleep. I woke up long enough to realize I was too hot, almost sweating. I leaned up, pulled my shirt over my head, and rolled over to lie on my stomach. When I woke up again, she was asleep too, covering her face with her arm. The tennis players had changed. A blue-hatted young girl was throwing an orange frisbee to her black-and-white dog. The children were squealing on the jungle gym. Three adult women were sitting in the grass near us, talking about their jobs and their vacations and other people and their jobs and their vacations.
In preparation for death
Pains in the left side of my chest make me realize how unprepared I am to die. Could it be my heart? Because I worked too hard? Or the cholesterol from eating four eggs every morning for the past month? Everything I’m working on suddenly seems pointless. Why continue working if I’m going to die soon?
Well, what did I think? That I was going to live forever? As a kid, I remember being afraid of death. I would lie awake alone in bed and think about it. But it was only an abstract concept then. These pains in my chest feel real.
I scheduled a doctor’s appointment for next week. Maybe they’ll tell me I’m alright. But what if I still feel the pains? Maybe they’ll tell me it really is something, but nothing serious. I’ll take a pill and go back to being young and alive. Or maybe it really will be something like heart disease. I try to imagine what it would be like for the doctor to tell me that. I guess I’m already thinking of it now so maybe I won’t be so surprised. I try not to think about it because I worry that somehow I’ll think it into existence, but I feel the pains and then my mind starts and I eventually get to thinking about terminal disease and death.
But it will happen sooner or later. I might as well learn how to deal with it now. That way, even if the doctor does tell me it’s benign, then I’ll have the training for when something is inevitable malignant.
I’ve done a lot of living and learned about all sorts of things but I know nothing about dying. I’ve lived as much as I can without knowing about death. If I learn about death and face it honestly then maybe we can shake hands and have an agreement and then I’ll be able to live without having to worry about when it might sneak up. When it comes, I’ll know it. We’ll both honor our agreement and that will be that.
The final hour
The first five left in one car earlier this morning. I went for a walk in the rain on the gravel trail and can back to find the last three, lounging on the couch in the living room. The kitchen counter cleaned and all our remaining food in one pile. Quiet and waiting for the hour to pass, and then load up in the second car and drive to the airport. The house wasn’t this quiet all week. Maybe at night, but even then it was still loud with the presence of breathing, all of us being together. More than half of us gone now, the magic let out of the door when they opened to leave like air out of a balloon. There are five more beers on the counter. We’ll leave them for the next guests.
Conversation with Braxton
Braxton said, “You gotta write before we leave.”
I said, “I can write at the airport.”
“Really? Isn’t it distracting?”
“No, airports are inspiring. And when I’m on the plane, I keep my WiFi off to get away from everything.”
“Really? I turn my WiFi on to keep me grounded.”
Blissfully ignorant youth
As I get older
And understand
The things
My parents said
I wonder
If they remember
Being young
And whether
They would trade
Their wisdom
September 17, 2021 at 07:52AM
Untitled
It was as early as the fifth grade when I became aware of other people’s preferences for my behavior and my appearance.
There is no being right or wrong, when it comes to art; there is only being loved or not.
If I ever leave
I kiss her, I love her. I mean it, I do. I wonder how much I’ll miss her. I’ll deserve it if it’s a lot. I’m used to having enough but wanting more, working hard, and getting it. With this, it’s not wanting more that’s the work. Now that I’m about to leave, I don’t want to. But I can’t forget that when I wasn’t going to leave, before I told her, I thought it was the right thing to do. I love her too much to think. I still try, and the thoughts come, but they change like the seasons. The sun shines; it rains, snows; and the leaves fall—all in an afternoon. But I’ve always loved her, since I told her for the first time. Even when I leave, if I ever do, I’ll still love her.
Nap all day
After our 10-mile hike, we were all exhausted. At four in the afternoon the next day, Jack was still asleep on the couch.
“I need to do something,” he groaned, shrugging off the blanket, standing up from the couch, stretching.
“What’s something?” River asked him.
“I don’t know,” Jack signed, sitting back down on the couch, reclining, pulling the blanket back over himself and closing his eyes.
Boogie towel
The white towel
Hanging
From the oven handle
Shimmies
Its shoulders
Dancing
With an unseen draft
September 16, 2021 at 06:45AM
My girlfriend isn’t like a city
My girlfriend
Isn’t like a city
If I leave
She might not be there
Waiting
When I come back
Title: She might not be there, waiting, when I come back
During college, I did my summer internships in three different cities: New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. I figured I could experience each city and then move to the one I liked best to start a full-time position after graduation. I chose San Francisco and moved there with a backpack, knowing no one. That was almost five years ago, and now I’m ready to move again. I want to live in a few more places before I choose somewhere to settle down for the long run. I love San Francisco, but I know I can always come back. But what if San Francisco meets somebody else while I’m gone? I love San Francisco, but I also want to live other places. What if I move and live somewhere else and it’s not as good and then I want to move back to San Francisco but by then she’s married to someone else? Part of me says I can’t be afraid. If I want to live other places, I should go. Another part says I’m taking San Francisco for granted and forgetting how great it was in the beginning. When we use to get smoothies on our lunch breaks. When we finally went on our first date to our coworker’s Christmas party. When we opened the windows in the morning and smelled the bakery and I went down to get her a croissant. When we would make french toast on Saturdays.
Maybe it’s my fault. I’ve been staying home and not getting out and exploring city.
Splash
It’s hard to think about two things at the same time. As we were talking, Carl and I were stepping from rock to rock along the river bank. I was leading, turning around to ask questions. I asked him if he was planning to get back together with his ex-girlfriend, then I heard a splash.
It’s all good
When he said “it’s all good,” he didn’t really mean that everything is great. What he really meant was that the there was some bad stuff that he would rather not talk about, like, “Yea, my job is tough, but it’s all good.” Or, “When I go to Europe I’ll miss my family, but it’s all good.”
Maybe he didn’t like talking about his emotions or seeming weak for complaining. Or he just wanted us to think that everything really was great for him.
But maybe, just maybe, he had it all figured out, having realized that none of it is either good or bad, so you might as well call it all good.
The song of the four old friends playing cards
I lay up in the loft and tried to sleep but gave up on avoiding listening to the boys downstairs playing euchre and talking about the cities where they each planned to move and just opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling and opened my ears to learn what I could from the words and maybe end up falling asleep to them like a bedtime story and even if not oh well this too shall pass I told myself and a good opportunity to practice letting go of my desire to try to go to bed even though I had nothing to do in the morning and instead meditating on the present listening to the words not only as vehicles of meaning driving from their mouths to my ears with some sort of useful fact in tow but also as interesting in the way that I read in a spiritual book about how when you glance quick at first and see a dog but it’s something before you say in your mind oh that’s a dog it’s the color and the shape which is really just color so it stays raw like it would be if you were seeing for the first time and not even knowing that you could walk up and feel its fur so I lay and listen and try to just hear the noise and furrow my brow and wonder ah what is sound what are these noises laughs exclamations interruptions oohs and ahhs glasses being set down on the table cards being shuffled altogether the art of the opposite of a silent movie a pictureless film the song of the four old friends playing cards in the living room at night.
Eyes closed in the car on the ride back from Icicle Gorge 09/13/21
In the car in the middle seat between my two buddies from college, I closed my eyes and paid attention. My shirt sleeves whipped against my arms. The wind blowing through the window came constant and then calmed when our speed slowed. The light through the sunroof made epileptsy-inducing, fast, flashy, shape-shifting mosaics on my inner eyelids. Speeding up again the wind somehow got into the back trunk and whirled around back there and then came rushing from behind me against the back of my neck, whooshing around my ears, slapping my cheeks. I opened my eyes right when Braxton was trying to take a funny picture, catching my sleeping. My weight leaned left when the car swerved around a rightward bend and then right around a leftward, swinging our way down the side of the mountain, the river rushing over the rocks down the slide to our right.
Why write when I can just watch?
While sitting in the car waiting for everyone else to load up so we can drive to the hike, I watch and listen for something to write but a thought that’s been recurring as I’ve periodically done this, especially recently as I’ve had enough free time to just sit around and try to write, is this: why can I not just stop after the watching and the listening? Why must I proceed to the writing? It changed then, when I proceed to write. I’m no long we watching and listening then. I’m thinking of words and playing other lexical games in my head, sometimes even with my eyes closed to concentrate, and sometimes even with ear plugs, closing out the world. If I wouldn’t stop to write, I could just sit and listen and watch and keeping on sitting and listening and watching and that’s all of it, that’s life. But I was raised to work, make something, contribute. Sitting around and doing nothing isn’t enough. Life in America isn’t a spectator sport. Everyone’s got to play. I’ve been getting away from it as much as I can. I gave capitalism an honest try. I looked hard for a reason to want to make money and found it when the bank took our house. And I worked hard through school and studied a marketable skill and got a job, but I was always writing. Some part of me was rebelling against the work. So now I’ve made some money and I can spend my time writing. But it feels like even writing is only a stepping stone and I haven’t completely pulled away from the perpetually-productice. I’m still trying to make use of my time and get something out of it. The watching and listening is really the important part. But maybe the writing is part of it too. It’s all life I guess because we’re living and doing it in our different ways and who’s to say one person is living and another isn’t. All our hearts are beating and we’re breathing and looking around, worrying and striving and then dying a little all the time until finally dying for good and living all the time until that point no matter what we’re doing. My personal problem is I’ve got feelings about it. I’ve got feelings about what I should be doing and occasional little reminders tell me I’m not doing it yet but it feels like I’m making progress and right now I’m thinking if it weren’t for my ego and my desire to make art that people love (and therefore, feel like they love me if they love my art) then I wouldn’t write, then I would just sit around and do nothing and watch and listen. But I’m not there yet. My ego is still within me. And it’s life now like it will still be life when and if I ever get rid of my ego and finally do nothing but maybe I can even float above my life somehow even as it is now and still live it and do it and be myself but not get so worried about what happens and so just be like a character in a movie I’m watching and be interested in the movie and even love or hate the character at times but that being nothing personal just like a story and stories happen to characters and you don’t ever get mad at a story or stay sad after it’s over it’s just a movie and it was a good one or a bad one for whatever reasons that don’t really regress to truths anyway but those people that make up the good and bad are just living their lives too and they aren’t either good or bad themselves because they make up the good or bad, they just are, and it all just is, and one day maybe I’ll just sit and watch and listen to it all be.
09/12/21 Morning #1 in Leavenworth
We all woke up one by one. I was first. I went out on the deck and sat on top of the hot tub cover and meditated. I thought it might cave in but it seemed sturdy and it’s nicer to meditation sitting up higher so I decided to risk it. River came out and sat at the table, put on his headphones, and opened his laptop; didn’t say a word, which I appreciated.
Then Nick was next. He sat at the table and wrote in his notebook, looking up occasionally and thinking, before bowing his head again and starting to scratch. I could hear his palm sliding across the page as he was going along from sentence to sentence. I wanted to ask him what he was writing about. I told myself I’d ask him later in the day. I love to read other people’s writing, especially what they’ve written in their journals when they don’t expect anyone else to read it. Eventually everyone was getting up, coming down the stairs; some more bleary-eyed, those who stayed up later and drank more.
Braxton bowed to me at the foot of the couch where I was lying and reading, mocking my attempts at peace and quiet study in the morning, as it should be I think, but Braxton would joke at a funeral so I never think much of it and just bowed back and go along with him and have fun with it and smile and really marvel that he’s able to come up with so many jokes all the time, an art form in its own right.
Nick came in to get the coffee pot and asked me if I wanted some and I said I was alright. I drink tea instead. Too much caffeine in coffee. Cameron came down and asked about the coffee but couldn’t find any mugs in the cabinet. River said, “Did you check the dishwasher?” Sure enough, there were all the mugs.
And one by one they all came, some from the room upstairs, others from the rooms down the hall, and all ended up on the deck drinking their coffee, telling stories—one person getting the stage and everyone else sitting around listening.
It is what it is
I don’t let it get too bad no more to really need a bounce back so I stay mostly in the middle like a plane running out of fuel sputtering along but never falling completely out of the sky but not soaring too high neither but it’s that big crash all the way down that bounces you back up and sometimes you bounce up even higher than the point you feel from because you’ve got momentum somehow even despite the fact that you’re fighting gravity it’s like the world gets turned upside down once you get depressed enough and it happens right when you crash hard into the ground and you think you oughta just have fallen into your grave and be done with it but nobody was there to dig your grave and so you just hit the hard earth and that’s right when the world turns and all of a sudden you see that you can’t go any lower and it’s only up from there and besides you’ve got reverse- gravity at your back now and you’re soaring up up up but I don’t let it get that bad no more like I said don’t drink too much to get sick don’t stay up to late to be tired in the morning don’t push myself until I break don’t go off on crazy foreign backpacking trips meeting new people and living on ten dollars a day it’s all bed before ten stretches in the morning and then tea at the desk trying to work and keep calm and concentrated maybe I’ve done my falling crashing and bouncing all the way back up and now it’s time for what I’m doing now just as it’ll always be time for what I’m doing now because, well, it’s what I’m doing and time is passing and that’s just what it is.
Feeling the life of it
Sitting cross-legged on top of the hot tub cover, my hands in my lap, left hand in the cup of my right, a wool blanket draped over my shoulders, I opened my eyes after my meditation and reacquainted them with the intricate other-than-darkness. I looked at a fir, standing tall and skinny. At first I just saw it and glanced away, but then I looked back and felt the tree. I reached deeper into it and felt the connection that one living being feels with another. Imagined what it was like for the tree to grow, storms it weathered as a sapling. And still growing, but too slow for me to see. Everything around me, trees mostly, but even the mountains—all seeming to be still, appearing as an unmoving picture, but really growing and living. Slow-living like this is unusual for a human like me used to living fast.
Note
I don’t let it get too bad no more to really need a bounce back so I stay mostly in the middle like a plane running out of fuel sputtering along but never falling completely out of the sky but not soaring too high neither but it’s that big crash all the way down that bounce
September 12, 2021 at 08:08AM
Scary chair
Walking by a chair
On my way up the stairs
And to bed
I thought the arm
Was human
Scared me for a second
Someone
Sitting silently
Their forearm perpendicular
Fingers curled up
Tucked under their palm
Staring blankly
Quietly
Not noticing me go by
September 11, 2021 at 10:42PM
Conversation with Connor Fox in the Seattle airport
Braden and Krys watched the Notre Dame football game on Braden’s iPad, drinking their pints of Stella. Connor and I stood by, talking.
Connor asked why I pause when I’m talking. I told him the Native American story about how, when they would sit in a circle and smoke a peace pipe, it was impolite to answer a question before taking some time to think about it first.
He asked if it’s been hard for me since I’ve started writing full-time. I told him no, if anything it’s been easier than working a job.
We talked some more about writing. I told him about how Joyce would write two sentences per day and it took him 17 years to finish Finnegans Wake. Connor asked a good question, do we think Joyce would overwrite and then trim down to two sentences, or would he obsess over every single world and only write it down when he was sure of it?
I also told him what another writer said to me about how I’m a 800m runner right now, as I transition from poetry to short prose. I’m not quite to the marathon-running that is novel writing. I think Borges said he could never write a novel. I think I’ll try, someday. Not yet. Now I’ll focus on shorter runs, writing what’s happening in the very moment around me.
Seattle airport shuttle from D gates to A gates
In an eerie moment
Alone
On the airport shuttle
I realized
That I was
Alone
No other passengers
Not even a conductor
Just me
In a metal car
Inside a cement tunnel
Hopefully headed
To the A gates
But maybe
Just on and on
Forever
Alone
September 11, 2021 at 12:37PM
Landing in Seattle
It’s one thing or another. My heart hurts. My back aches. She’ll get pregnant and then I won’t be free on my own anymore. I’ll run out of money and have to go back to work and give up the writing life. But it’s any sign of ill health that’s the worst. I can get through anything if I’m alive and strong. I guess I’m still afraid to die. That’s what I need to work on—learning to die. My friend told me about an inscription (from Ancient Greece, I think), “If you learn to die before you die then you won’t die.” I also read somewhere else about being “in harmony with the flow of life.” I’ve been spending all my time writing and sometimes reading, but I need to spend more time meditating, learning to die, and flowing with life. Maybe then I won’t worry so much.
Dead and gone
On the side of the highway
A cross commemorates
Someone who died there
I wonder where they were going
And all the other places
They might have gone
Thereafter
September 11, 2021 at 07:44AM
How long is a week, really?
I have a trip coming up, tomorrow actually. My flight leaves at nine in the morning—late enough that I don’t have to worry about sleeping in and missing it, but early enough that I won’t have to spend a large part of the day in anticipation.
I’ve been looking forward to this trip, but I’ve been playing the game of pushing it out of my mind to keep the excitement from building to an uncomfortable level, like when I was sent to my room as a kid, looking out the window and watching the other kids play, wanting to play with them, but knowing that I had to stay in my room for at least an hour, and only making the time pass slower by watching the other kids and letting the wanting build. At some point, I learned to distract myself. I would read comics.
And that’s what I do now. When I have something to which to look forward, I distract myself, often with work.
Something else I learned, maybe around the time when I first fell in love, was to minimize my expectations. Their shoes get so big that reality can never fill them. Like telling a fishing story, “You want to know how big the fish was? Just guess!”
Eating a plum over the sink
I hate to waste
The blood that gushes
Forth from the flesh
That I tear with my teeth
The heart seed
In the center
Still beating
The sweet taste
On my tongue
In my hands
Half of the body
Still itself
Though mangled
The other half
Chewed, swallowed
Eaten
And inside
Now part of me
No screams
From the victim
Just snaps
As the skin breaks
And then soft
Slushing
As ivory knives
Cut through its innards
It knew
When it was growing
Drinking
From the fountain of youth
It knew its purpose
Was to be eaten
Everything must die
Maybe being eaten
Isn’t such
A bad way to go
September 10, 2021 at 12:30PM
Smallest
Everything I need
Is in this room
And by room
I mean body
And by body
I mean
The smallest
Part of me
Which also
Happens to be
The smallest part
Of everything else
September 08, 2021 at 03:13PM
Oh, what a wonderful world
There’s only one story I want to write. If I could just write this one story, then it would be more than the sum of everything I’ve written and will write. It’s like Hemingway said, about writing the truest sentence you know. I don’t know if “truest” is the right word for this story, but the suffix “st” is certainly appropriate—the biggest, the saddest, the most, the mostest, even more than the mostest. I’ve read the story myself but only a few dozen times in my life. It’s very short. And it’s not like other stories. It’s elusive. I call it a story, but it’s not. I only imagine it as such because it is my art form. I’m not even sure that it can be made into one.
I read it just now as I was in the kitchen, making a smoothie. I reached into the jar to scoop out some powder, and there it was. My hand, my fingers, the scooper, the powder—holding space, being. Being why? Because it is. Or because I can see, feel. Do not answer that question, that endless rabbit hole of philosophy.
That we are. That is it. That is the story. But the words are not right. It is such a rough translation that a native speaker would not understand.
That we are … in a world such as this. I am not sure if the right direction is forward or backward, more words or less.
That I am. The “we” seems excessive.
I am. So did the “that.”
But gah! Those words do not tell it. Perhaps, then, the right direction is forward, more.
When I reach into the jar, I am suddenly aware that I am in control of my fingers. Around me, there is more, like my fingers, but not the same; material, but not me. The two—my body and the material world—can communicate, can dance, can cause a change in the other. I pick up the scooper by the handle, it raises in the air. I dip the scooper into the powder, it fills.
Of course, there is more—the other senses, the other ways in which our kind interacts with the material world. But again, do not fall down the rabbit hole. Stand at the edge.
It is all there! Around me, as I now sit at the table, writing. The chairs pushed in under the table, the plant and candlesticks standing in the center of the table, the light coming in the window through the open doorway beyond the far side of the table.
I can see it! If I were to stand up from my seat, I could pick up one of the candlesticks. I could walk over and close the door. I could change it. I could change what I am seeing. I could block the light from my sight.
I see something, hear something. I am able to go it, see it closer, in more detail. I can run away from a sound, until there is silence.
Smells from a bakery. I could go there. Open the door. Taste the bread.
I wish to convey the marvel of it. How do we forget? Maybe it is not possible to survive in a constant state of such rapture.
I am not concerned with the actual, the facts, the science. I am concerned with the experience.
What are the words? For the moment when I discover my own existence. When the amazement of it strikes me, especially after I have forgotten for a while.
The tragedy is that it will not be forever. I lift in the joy of finding it and then immediately fear losing it.
I will die, but while I live, oh, what a playground. What a fortunate child I am!
If I had none of it, even a string would be the world. How I would finger the string. Twist it, tie it, throw it, ball it up, stretch it, taste it, wrap it around my finger, and on and one, never bored.
But here, there is so much, like a candy shop.
Wanting
Well what happens
Is I’ll start strong
Sprinting along
Until my wanting
Starts to wane
And then I slow
To a stroll
And eventually
A full stop
Where I’ll sit
Wherever I end up
And wait
For another want
To come along
September 06, 2021 at 11:32AM
Last-minute deletes from The Art of Sidewalking 09/06/21
LAUNDRY LADY
A pair
Of worn, white socks
Encircled
By dark, dirty clothes
In a heap
Of laundry
On the floor
Look like
An old lady’s face
Wrapped in a shawl
MEATHEAD
Oh here he goes
With heft again
Heaving as he may
Huffing and puffing
His big chest for something
But still, he holds no sway
For strength aside
His muscles try
To make up for his mind
That door would budge
With just a nudge
If the knob were so inclined
ON THE CORNER
Pedestrians walk across the yellow rectangles
Two men drink their coffee under an awning
The tree branches bob gently
One of the men holding a coffee cup
Gestures vehemently with his other hand
A man with a dog on a leash
Stops to look inside a shop window
While his dog sniffs at a light pole
Blue and green trash cans stand by the curb
Cars continue to make their noise
And barely avoid crashing
One of the same pedestrians from before
Walks back across the yellow rectangles
IN SEARCH OF A BATHROOM
When any bin,
Bucket, basin,
Or brick wall
Would do
DEAD BUG
Cutting a green pepper
On a wooden board
I saw a little black speck
A piece of peppercorn
That I almost just tossed in
With the tacos
But I’m glad I didn’t
Because I slid the point of the knife
Underneath the speck
Brought it closer to my eyes
It had legs
A little creature, dead
With its legs curled up
Underneath it
But it must have had its fill
And thought itself lucky
To have made its way
Inside the pepper
Until it realized
It would be a coffin
Albeit, one fit
For a Pharaoh
So maybe, all in all
Life wasn’t so bad
For the little dead bug
HER HONEY
Some would say
That the beekeeper
Brings us honey
But, really, she
Is the artist
Like the bees
Bring the honey
And I am only
The collector
Like the keeper
Who stands idly by
Patient enough
To collect and deliver
Their sweet creation
LEFTOVER LOVE
I try to drink it in
Eat it
Consume
And digest
All of this moment
That taste, smells,
And feels like
I wish it always would
I want it so much
That I miss it already
Even though I still have it
I breathe in deeply
As if I could inhale some
Seal it in a container
And put it in the fridge
To save for later
THE SUN COMES UP
So early
In the summer
That I wonder
If I even
Got to sleep
OLD MAN #2
Another old man
With a gray mustache
And glasses
Eats a biscuit
And drinks a coffee
By the window
Picking up crumbs
Delicately, slowly
Between his fingers
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!”
PHOTOGRAPHER #2
Stood on the path
In everyone’s way
Looking up at the sky
At a trail of smoke
Left by a plane
Some of the passersby
Stood for a second
And tried to find
What the cameraman
Was seeing
He pointed and explained
But they couldn’t see
Or just didn’t understand
What the big deal was
About a trail of smoke
In the sky
NAKED IN THE TREES
I stand among the trees
Welcoming back the nature
That got poured over in the city
With cement streets
And concrete buildings
A few trees remain
In square-foot sections of sidewalk
But not enough to stand among
And be surrounded by
Like the forest out here—
The grass is overgrown, as it should be
Some trees lie knocked down, but not by man
Most trees still stand, as they should
And I stand with them, at peace
CROOKED EAGLE (this would be better as prose)
A desert eagle landed
On the roof across from our balcony
And James explained
How the falconer
Brought the eagle everyday
To chase away the smaller birds
We watched the eagle
Pick at its plumage
As one small bird
And then another
And another
Landed
On the roof next to it
The eagle must have
Been getting more
From the small bird mafia
Than from the falconer
MARCUS (this would be better as prose)
I got the chicken
With brussels sprouts and pumpkin purée
The chicken was perfect
But the brussels sprouts were undercooked
I wasn’t going to tell him
Because you don’t tell strangers
What’s wrong with
What they love
But he told me his story—
Made his way over to the U.S.
From Germany
And sold automation technology
To auto companies
Even though baking
Was always his passion
He would take the executives
Of these auto companies
Out to dinner
At the nicest restaurants
And that is when he promised himself
He would open his own someday
It started as a bakery
And then expanded to
A dinner menu
And I told him I believed in him
And I thought his restaurant would be big
And then we weren’t strangers anymore
So I told him
The brussel sprouts were undercooked
And he shook my hand
And said he would tell the chef
TELLING STORIES (this would be better as prose)
When you talk to someone
And listen for a while
You get restless at some point
And wonder when it will be over
But you get past that
And forget about yourself
And actually start to live in their story
And be interested in it
You ask them questions
Really wanting to know
What it was like
At the twists and turns
It’s their eyes
That always get me
When I am as close as I can get
To leaving my own life
And living theirs
Their eyes
Are the last door
I look
And then fall
Completely into them
>>>
When I listen to someone
Tell a story
It’s always their eyes
That finally get me
Out of myself
And my own worries
And into them
And their story
I leave my own life
And live theirs
AN OLD WHITE MAN (this would be better as prose)
With gray stubble on his face
Wearing a tattered cowboy hat,
An oversized button-up shirt,
And oversized khaki pants
Slouched
In a straight-backed
Wooden chair
His head leaning forward
He looked out from under
The lids of his half-closed,
Bloodshot eyes
Raised his veiny,
Hairy-knuckled hand
Pointed
One of his long skeleton fingers
At the flamenco dancer
In her festive
Red-and-black dress
Stomping on stage
Putting on a show for the gallery
And said something
To explain
Why he was pointing
But it was incoherent
Maybe because
Of the empty bottle of wine
Next to him on the table
But for a guy of his size
He would have needed
More than just one bottle
To get to that point
By his demeanor
I guessed that he was either
The proprietor
Of the gallery,
The artist who made
All the pieces,
Or otherwise the man
In charge of the moment
In some way
Or another
As we all watched
And waited for him
To take the lead
THE OLDEST GAME
The girl whom he
Was trying to get
Danced
While he pretended at it
And mostly
Just watched her
WHERE ART THOU, HANGOVER
I woke up confused
By not feeling worse
And confused also
About what to do
Other than whatever
Would make me feel better
Eventually
I went down to the pool
And so started
A day full
Of what wasn’t planned
But just happened
One carefree accident
After another
FORCE
I carry with me
Force
Walking
Through the hallway
I bump
The door frame
With my hip bone
And almost
Knock
The house down
>>>
Apparently
I don’t know
My own strength
When I bumped
The door frame
With my hip bone
The structure
Shook so
I thought I almost
Knocked
The house down
CONSTRUCTION NOISE
At the job across the street
The construction crew
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
Has gone on,
Have been drowned out
By hammering, sawing,
Nailing, shouting,
And other sounds
Of industry
Which usually
Make me feel guilty
For lying in bed
Today
I can take the day off too
A SPACE IN TIME
The hot sun
On the back porch
Bakes into
Bare legs
Crossed over
Eyes closed
Head leaning back
Lungs exhaling
Here is where
I’ve needed to come
Less of a place
More of a space
In time—
A moment
Like this
BIG DENTURE
Bright light
Breaks through
The mouth
Of the tunnel
Like the face
Of the mountain
Is missing
A tooth
MENTAL
I can never
Get my mind
Out of the way
Fast enough
To get
To the visceral
I’ve already
Abstracted
Clouds to heavens
Blood to war
Food to hunger
Described it
To death
Pondered every
Possibility
Made it
Mental
>>>
I’ve already sent
My mental assistant
Running down the hall
To pull the file
Of past memories
LAST BEER
Beer bubbles
At the bottom of the glass
Make me sad
Because this
Was the last one
In the fridge
And I’ll have to switch over
To white wine
After these last sips
RESORT NEIGHBOR
Drinks in hand
Forearms resting
On the railing
He said, you are young
And full of energy
What do you mean
By “energy,” I asked
He pointed out at the lights,
Boats, roofs, roads, water
And asked me
What do you see out there?
He waited patiently
Like a teacher
For the right answer
I said I saw lights,
Boats, roofs, roads, water
He said there are
Protons and electrons
It’s all energy
I could see in his eyes
When he said it
He meant more
Than the physics lesson
I learned in high school
I wasn’t sure
Exactly what
But still
When he looked at me
And asked if I understood
I said I did, sincerely
THE SOUND OF BEING UNDERWATER
Treading water
With my ears above the surface
I heard
Squeals of children
Music from the beach bars
Waves crashing
Vendors selling
Underwater
I heard
What I try to remember
How to describe
Back on the beach
It was
Not silent
I’ll have to
Swim out again
And fish
For words
So you can
Bring it back to shore
Inland
To wherever you are
Grill it, bake it
Or however you like your fish
To taste, hear
And be there
Underwater
And at peace
ORNERY FUTURE
I get into a moment
And think that this
Will be forever
And start to plan
Accordingly
Setting up expectations
And parameters
For the future to fit into
What I’m experiencing
Right now
But of course
The future
Is an ornery child
That never obeys
Its present parent
LOOSELY
I can close my eyes
And escape from where
My sight says I am
But my other senses
Still tether me
To what I can hear and feel
So I plug my ears
And lie down
On soft cushions
I still remain myself
Albeit
A little more loosely
DEEP BREATH
I was so worried
That 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
PARK POEMS
A baseball
In the grass
As the sun sets
On the skyline
I pick a poem
Like a leaf
Or a lyric
From a bird’s song
Then run home
To write it down
MOMENTS
If I could just keep in
To each for its own sake
Not always looking later
Longing for the next
They would come and come
Countless
Each for itself
As all things are
Eased into being
And then back to nothing
Without my meddling
To make moments
More than they are
BROKEN BLENDER
Melted the rubber
Wedged between
An engine that had
All the strength
And a blade that had
All the ambition
It was obvious
That the rubber
Was already
Worn out
But the engine-blade
Industrial complex
Didn’t really
Seem to care
LIKE THE HARE
For what do I wait
While wanting wanes
Though I may be
Strong and swift
At the start
Rejoicing
In the sprint
Stretching
Straight ahead
Until the end
Seems farther
And farther
And the wanting
Which at first
Burned bright
As a fire
Turns to ash
And cools
GRATITUDE
I close my eyes to remember sight is a gift
I sit in silence to remember sound is a gift
I fast to remember food is a gift
I catch a cold to remember health is a gift
I spend time alone to remember friendship is a gift
I stay in one place to remember travel is a gift
I go to sleep to remember life is a gift
SOOTHING SHEET
I laid my ear
On the sheet
And listened
To the silence
That softly
Said, “Shh
All else
Is outside
Far away
From here”
ONE BOAT
With my forehead pressed
Against the plane window
Leaving a greasy smudge
On the glass
I looked down at the ocean
And spotted a solitary boat
Reclined in my seat
To see all the ocean ahead
And then leaned forward
To search the blue behind
But there was not
A single
other
one
This should have been painted
I got down on my knees, opened the window, rested my elbows on the sill, and stuck my head out the window to breathe some fresh air. While I did, I watched the subtle movements in our backyard (lemon trees, other trees, stone steps, an elusive black-and-white cat, border by other apartments on all sides). Dew gathered in the upturned, cupped hands of leaves, glinting in the light as the leaves slightly shake, as if to drop the heavy burden filling their palms. One leaf on another tree fell, collided with other branches on the way down—I thought to myself, how lucky that I looked out in time to see a leaf fall, but then again there are probably leaves falling all the time. A bug, not a normal fly, judging by the way it hovered at one point in the air, like a hummingbird.
I saw all this and it started to seem like it might be beautiful. And, as I do when something starts to seem like it might be beautiful, I started to write a poem in my head—trying out lines, forming stanzas. But I was discouraged, for least a couple of reasons.
First, poetry did not seem to be an apt art form for capturing this backyard scene. It was primarily an experience of sight. It was quiet in the morning. All I could taste was the faint remnant of toothpaste and all I could smell was the crisp air. The only physical feelings were my knees on the hardwood and my elbows on the sill. My eyes were the windows where the beauty shined through and it seemed that there was too much of it for words.
Dozens of trees, hundreds of leaves on each of them. The trunk of one tree so broad that I probably couldn’t have gotten my arms all the way around it. Branches of the lemon tree sagging, lemons almost touching the ground. Millions of grains of dirt on the ground. The dry birdbath, the cushion on the ground that perhaps someone brought out to sit on and then left. Light playing off of all of it in myriad ways.
And I could have gone on like this—using my words to describe what I was seeing. But it didn’t seem right. It didn’t seem that a reader would enjoy a catalog—separated by commas and periods, organized in the typical block-of-text prose—of what I was seeing. I am not a painter, a drawer, or a sketcher, but I think these art forms would have been more apt for the backyard scene. “A picture is worth a thousand words” proves true in this instance. Our eyes are eyes. They are not lips and brains. What part of us processes the written word? What experiences are most appropriately communicated in the written form?
Second, in a note from an editor regarding a recent collection of poetry, the editor wrote (paraphrasing) that happenings are beautiful because of what they can tell us, not just because they happen. I have been mulling over it and I’m still not sure if I agree with this. Might things be beautiful just because they happen? As humans, we want to have things our way. We want cars so we can travel fast and far on roads. We want tall buildings so that we can cram more people into cities. We want our lives to mean something. And we want our art to mean something too. Why is all the most popular art focused on the same handful of themes? Love, violence, success, failure. Is there a place in human art for a backyard to just be a backyard without personifying it? Without analogizing it to the ecstasies and miseries to which we are accustomed because we are human?
Distracted
I poured water
From a pitcher
Into a glass
And almost forgot
To tighten my grip
As the weight increased
Maybe if I did
Drop the glass
And it shattered
At my feet
Splashing water
Everywhere
It would have been
A good reminder
For me
To stay present
And not
Think so much
September 03, 2021 at 10:48AM
Distracted
I poured water
From a pitcher
Into a glass
And almost forgot
To tighten my grip
As the weight increased
Maybe if I did
Drop the glass
And it shattered
At my feet
Splashing water
Everywhere
It would have been
A good reminder
For me
To stay present
And not
Think so much
September 03, 2021 at 10:48AM
Faces of
Frost and Cummings
On book covers
Atop the table
Staring stoically
As I try to write
Like they did
Stumped
On where to break
Or what word
To replace
I look up
And see them
Staring
It’s honestly
Not as inspirational
As it is
Nerve-racking
September 02, 2021 at 07:46PM
The rest, we make up
I hear
A blower blowing
Leaves somewhere
But that’s not
Interesting enough
A car
Pushing its motor
Up the hill
But that’s not
Either
Just sounds
Everyone
Has already heard
I’ve got to
Make it mean
Something
At least that’s
What my editor said
In reply
To my poems
About what comes
And how it comes
To my senses
And that’s it
What more
Is there?
The rest
We make up
So why not give them
Some
Of what’s really there
And let you
Make up the rest
The blower’s blowing
There
Do you give a damn?
No?
Well, then go lie down
Try to have a nap
In the middle of the day
On a Thursday
When the city outside
Is still sounding
And hear what you will
And then you won’t
Need me anymore
September 02, 2021 at 04:26PM
Never half-full
I fill
And fill
And fill
Sleep
And stay safe
And satisfied
Because
When I pour
I really do
All of it
Looses
And lets go
Even myself
Abandons
Its integrity
Until it’s all
All of it
Completely gone
Then I fall
Into a deep
Deep sleep
Stay still
And start to fill
Again
September 02, 2021 at 04:21PM
Sell-out soul struggle
A band doesn’t play their best song. The crowd boos them off stage. In an interview, the lead singer says, “I just don’t feel that way anymore. Singing those words makes me feel a certain way and I don’t want to feel that way anymore.” But the band takes a vote. They vote to play the song in order to keep touring without any more booing. The lead singer sings this song, feels the way the words make her feel, and just has to deal with it.
Note
Falling asleep reading
Thi
September 02, 2021 at 04:10PM
Abstinence
My desire for her wells and wells without release. I am unequipped to sink as deeply into the ocean of her as my heart alone would, if not encased in my clumsy corporal form. I pull her body close to mine, constrict my embrace until she says I must be gentle, but still, she comes not near enough. The water to which my lustful flesh would have my horse heart led is obvious, trite—a played-out platitude. I have drunk myself to drunkenness from that fount. I have splashed like a child in the shallows along the surface and held my breath to swim deep into the depths until my lungs screamed, but I never reached the bottom and always returned gasping for air and exclaiming, “There is no end to this wonder!” But even swimming starts to seem like walking to one who spends too long in the water. And then, to make the long-time swimmer walk again, where then does their desire to swim satiate itself? Bathing in public water fountains, perusing fish aisles at pet stores. It is agony, yes, but sweet agony. Like hunger before a meal. The first bite is the best. The second, third, and so on are increasingly unconvincing impostors of the true taste in the first. But even before the first. What taste is there already in hunger? Standing in the kitchen, smell is a stand-in. Far away from even hope of food, stranded in the desert, memories of taste remain. But alas, here I am, in an oasis of her—sleeping in the same bed, seeing her naked, holding her. All but the deep drink. Like Tantalus, except the fruit lays itself in my palm and the water rises almost to my lips, and it is only my obstinate attempts to channel my natural inclinations in wide circles that loop back around to the same inclinations in the end. But not all in vain, as I have found new ways of loving her, and thus have grown arms longer and stronger for reaching around and holding the ever-expanding ocean of her.
Abstinence
My desire for her wells and wells without release. I am unequipped to sink as deeply into the ocean of her as my heart alone would, if not encased in my clumsy corporal form. I pull her body close to mine, constrict my embrace until she says I must be gentle, but still, she comes not near enough. The water to which my lustful flesh would have my horse heart led is obvious, trite—a played-out platitude. I have drunk myself to drunkenness from that fount. I have splashed like a child in the shallows along the surface and held my breath to swim deep into the depths until my lungs screamed, but I never reached the bottom and always returned gasping for air and exclaiming, “There is no end to this wonder!”