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There are
Three parts
Of OM
AHHHH
—Open mouth wide
Release fully
All breath
OHHHH
—Narrows lips
As if to whistle
Focus sound
Drop pitch
MMMMM
—Close lips
Smiling, similar
To satisfaction
After eating
Then silence
Before repeating
>>>
My back starts hurting, usually, when I am seated or standing for a long period.
Why am I seated or standing for a long period? To work.
Why am I heeding the call to work and ignoring the pain in my back?
>>>
Self-conscious
I do
Or say something
As I would
Alone
Without realizing
I am not
>>>
A handle pokes out from under the blanket draped over the daybed. I put the pan beneath the bed before I went to sleep last night, in case of an intruder.
Usually, I write well when I take mushrooms, or at least more creatively. I lie here, on pillows on the floor, having taken them once more, waiting for something to write about.
When I take mushrooms, I sit, lie, lounge, walk in circles, but mostly just wait in between bouts of writing. WHY CAN I NOT DO THIS SOBER?
Mushrooms remind me how to live like a child, but then I go back to living in the adult world. They treat me like one of them because I look like one of them. I often want to do things that are not customary in the adult world, either because they are just not usually done or because the law explicitly forbids it. When walking on the sidewalk the other day, I was curious about a shrub. But I could only see its leaves. I was interested in the trunk and the branches. I thought to get down on my hands and knees there on the sidewalk to have a look, but then these other thoughts came marching one after another into my mind like soldiers. One of the soldiers said, the sidewalk is dirty. The next said, someone will see you. The next said, you are not dressed like a gardener. And so I went, walking on down the sidewalk, not knowing what I would have seen if I had lifted up the skirt of the shrub.
I finish one piece of writing. I want to continue on. I have more to say—things I thought of while writing, but they were unrelated or otherwise wouldn’t fit in the prose, because of the technicality of it, and at the moment I was writing, they wouldn’t fit presently, so I carried on with whatever else and my other thoughts waiting in the queue were forgotten. But I have now remembered some of them! Alas, they are only parts. Their beauty was, and still is, in their belonging to and being placed in each of the appropriate stations inside of the whole. Now, I must forget them, maybe forever. Whether they will return to me, in my mind, is up to forces greater than me. My only choice in the matter is either to hold them and have them as they are for me now, or to let them go and know, twofold—that they may never return to me, but also that new and different others may come to fill their absences. Consistently faced with his choice, how deep shall I go with any one thought? How much time shall I spend with her? Does she have more to teach me, more to say? Or might I learn more from others—different, younger ones? Are my wishes the only ones to be considered in this matter? Now I am thinking no longer of thoughts, but of my relationship with my girlfriend.
On my knees, on the rug, I become aware of the classical music playing. I close my eyes, raise my arms in the air above my head, bend them at the elbow, twirl my fingers, curve the side of my body into a bow, and dance to the music—slowly, softly. I had a thought that someone might be watching. The possibility that someone might be watching made me ask myself, should I be dancing in this way? And now other thoughts come of this. First, we are at a cabin in the woods, just my girlfriend and I, and it is unlikely that anyone is watching. Second, if someone were watching, why should I dance any differently or stop? Third, why is it that someone else watching makes me consider whether I should or should not be doing something? Not even them ACTUALLY watching, just the THOUGHT that they MIGHT be makes me second-guess the way in which I am dancing, alone in a cabin in the woods. Perhaps it is too feminine—the way my side bends into a bow and my fingers twirl. I am a man. Should I, therefore, not be dancing like a woman?
As a writer, I think of myself as such—as being one, a writer. When I write, if it seems like it might be becoming a piece that will be well-received—like a young boy shows early athletic promise and might grow up to become a great baseball player—then the thought that it might be so interrupts me while I have not yet finished with making the piece whole. I think to myself, what if so-and-so reads this, or if they publish me in such-and-such magazine? And then what will that mean for me? Riches, fame, and all the other gifts that are usually given to the main character in a story that ends well. But it interrupts me, this dream of glory, as I am still in the act of making the darn thing.
I worry that I can only write well when I have eaten mushrooms. I don’t believe this is true. I think I write well even when I have not eaten mushrooms. It is the READING that is different after having eaten mushrooms. Everything I read seems to be right and true, fantastic and new. It seems this way whether I have written it or someone else has. When I am writing, I am also reading what I have written. On mushrooms, what I am writing sounds wonderful. I have had this experience several times—eating mushrooms, writing, deeming it well-written. Thusly must the belief, first, and worry, next, have arisen.
Now, as an aside, being an aside because I believe my previous thought has concluded well where it has, still, I might add: I have read, while on mushrooms, what I wrote, while NOT on mushrooms, and found it to be the work, not of a genius but, of one relatively advanced in their craft. I have also read, while NOT on mushrooms, what I wrote, while on mushrooms, and found it to be the work of a lunatic who aspired to write, discovered mushrooms, thought they might aid in his writing process, ate them too often, and never stayed sober long enough to master the intricacies of the craft, which can only be learned by long hours of bored, tedious, and frustrated trying-and-failing, interspersed with reading the greats and wondering—of some of them, why can I not write as well as this myself; of others, are they really as great as everyone says they are?
While writing on mushrooms, many thoughts come to mind while I am already engaged with writing a specific one. Some of these I can forget easily, as they showed a little promise of extraordinariness. Others, those that show more promise, make it difficult for me to decide—between cutting short my current engagement (writing a thought that, before, what the same as this other one than I now consider, a question mark) and ignoring it to delve deeper where I am already standing, up to my knees in disturbed dirt, digging deeper still, to find any stones unturned. They linger, like a first taste that forbids a full bite. With one hand they wag a finger in front of my face that says “no, not yet.” The other hand they hold out, palm facing up. They are asking for something. A price. The price I must pay if I wish to bite into, chew, and mull over the thought to which I have not yet committed. The price is the one with whom I am already. Both, I cannot have. I must place the one I have, still an infant, into the upturned palm. I will never know what the youngling might have grown up to be. But, oh! Here is another, newer, brighter. If only shining its light to attract, if the flame cannot stay lit, if it proves to be no better than the one I had before, then I will go searching once more, and again—the two hands: one, wagging its finger; the other, an upturned palm.
I feel that one of us will win, and the other must then lose. Why must it be this way? I read recently that, based on our evolutionary predispositions, the man desires to spread his seed far and wide, while the woman wants to retain a man to provide for and protect herself and any children they may have together. Is this true? How can I say? But let’s pretend that it is. The desires of the man and the woman are opposing. The women cannot retain the man while he continues to spread his seed. Or, maybe … Already I see margins of possibility in which the man and the woman, in the context of a monogamous relationship between them, must not necessarily be opposing forces. Alas, here I am on the ground floor, writing my own thoughts, while my girlfriend is upstairs writing hers (I can hear the keys clacking on her keyboard), and we are breaking up. It’s not a surprise. We’ve been talking about it. At one point, she wanted me to pack my things and leave that same day. Somehow we ended up here together in this beautiful cabin nestled in the forest of Northern California outside of town called Elk. And I return to my beginning question: if we are to separate, why must it feel like one side is winning and the other is losing? Because one side chooses to end it while the other wants it to continue. There is the opposition: one wants it to end while the other wants to continue. In this situation, both cannot have what they want. Unless, maybe the relationship can transform. One wants it to end, but maybe it doesn’t need to end on the whole. Would the other be okay with a few modifications, in part? Could the relationship still live on, after the modifications? This makes me realize: relationships are always transforming. Because they involve individuals who are always changing. What happens when one changes in a way that the other doesn’t want them to? Then it becomes complicated. She asks, were you this way when I met you? How could I not have seen it? All my other relationships were the same way. Blaming—me, herself, past boyfriends. But the facts remain: people change, relationships transform. Now, the question is: how do we navigate the transformation?
I thought I heard her crying. I couldn’t tell if it was just the music or if she really were up there whimpering, sniffling. I got up and walked over to the steep steps (almost a ladder) of the old-water-tower-turned-cabin. I grabbed the railing and climbed up. There she was—her caramel skin in contrast to the white sheets, her curly hair slightly frizzy (as it gets when she’s been rolling around in bed). I asked how she was doing, if she was okay, or something like that (I forget exactly what I said). We skated, as we tend to, like those water bugs, along the surface, before descending. Then she told me that she HAD been crying. I told her, oh, I’m sorry, well, that is why I came up here. Then she said oh, did you hear me? You couldn’t have. It was only a tear. I wasn’t sobbing. I told her about how I thought I had heard crying in the music. We marveled. I must have FELT her crying, somehow, even though I wasn’t actually hearing her. She was crying because she read a few pages out of a book she found on the steps by a Vietnamese author about how he was thankful for his mother and for memories of when she would take him to the mall. My girlfriend’s mother is Vietnamese. I suspect that is why she felt a closeness to this particular book. She said, “I realized I want to cry more. I want to have things in my life that make me cry. Not just shallow melodrama. You know? Like (and she preceded to describe what she meant and how she felt in words that were perfect, but all I can remember is …) things that make you feel like you’re on the brink of being alive.” The moment was sublime, terribly so. I, knowing our relationship was ending, one tear already on my cheek and more welling. Her, being beautiful in her body as she always is, but then also the depths and intricacies of her emotions, as well as her lexical prowess to communicate them. The trees through the window behind her, bending in the wind, a glint on the glass making their green look red. Ah! What is a man to do? Other than audibly call for his deity, cry more than he already has, and shield his eyes, only to pry them back open, unveiling the portal to his heart, inviting in the moment that is more than can be captured by any artist, no matter how skilled, nor how numerous his forms. Only I, as I was in that moment, the material world as it was, chakras balancing, energy fields in opposition, formless feelings floating, angels singing—all conspiring to torture me, as if all the potency of life were distilled down into one drink, one swallow. As soon as it touched my lips I sputtered and spat. If it were spread out and watered down, so that I could have had time to process, make rational, cram into my own understanding—then I could have taken it. As it was—me, her, and the trees through the window behind her—I had to run. In this case, I slowly descended the steep steps, holding onto the railing. It took some willpower and a great deal more conditioned concern for my bodily well-being not to suddenly fling myself down them as fast and as recklessly as my heart and soul were fleeing. But no matter the manner in which I did, I ran, nonetheless. I ran like I always do. I ran like a thief into a field clutching above my head the bouquet of flowers she had given me, petals flying off of them as I went. See, I’ve never been able to stay put there and just listen to her. As soon as she starts being beautiful (which is immediately, and always) I run away with derivatives, hand-me-downs of her to render into my heart, so that others will pay me, praise me, or whatever will validate the male equivalent of female beauty. I do this, even as I am somewhat aware that I am running in a wide circle, the path of which is laden with obstacles, deceits, let-downs, repetitious exhaustion, self-loathing, and various other trials which must be faced by a man working his way up through the world to be worthy of a woman at the top—all of this, I persist in putting myself through, even as the woman of my dreams lies here in bed asking me, why will you not listen to me? Why will you not come to bed? Why will you not stay?
*** This prose above has the same idea as the poem, HER HONEY. I need to return to that poem. The idea is there. It is true. But it is not yet well-written.
When I forget to breathe, I cannot make up for it by taking rapid deep breaths, which is my habit. I failed, was resultantly worse off, may even suffer lasting damage, but there are some mistakes in the past that I can’t set right presently. I can only learn from them and avoid making the mistake again.
I am realizing, now that I’ve come down from the mushrooms high but still writing, that STAYING PRESENT is important for writing well. This is a partial answer to a recurring question: why do I write better on shrooms, compared to being sober? When I write sober, it usually goes like this: I am inspired by some sensory input, thought, or feeling, and then I formulate an IDEA thereof. I thus interrupt the otherwise seamless flow from stimulation to words, by having an IDEA of the stimulation before I begin to write. I end up writing about an impostor, the intermediary idea. While on shrooms, I stay present. I write about whatever comes up. And I write honestly, rarely second-guessing.
He would say the name, then he would pause for a long second to see if I had met them or been there, or at least if I knew of the person or had heard of the place. He talked like an encyclopedia. Every twentieth word was a proper noun. He enunciated the first letters of the names to remind me they were capitalized.
When I didn’t know of the person (which was more often than not) and confessed that I didn’t (which I only did a few times when his pauses were extra long and accusatory of my ignorance) he would say, “Oh, they are important, you must read about them.” Of a place, he would say, “Oh, it’s beautiful, you must go there.”
Afterward, I thought of a couple of possible reasons for my conversational partner’s manner of speaking. Either he had learned in the past that bringing up names was a way to seem intelligent, or he just wanted to be anyone other than himself, somewhere other than where we were.
You don’t always think what you think that you think. Sometimes it’s actually an emotion and not a thought at all.
When you have a thought in mind, try putting it into words by either explaining it to someone in a conversation or writing it down on paper. Then you will know if you were thinking precisely what you thought you were thinking and, further, if it actually makes some bit of sense.
When you have an emotion in your heart, do the same thing—try putting it into words.
In my own experience, I have had thoughts that I believed to be strong and true, but when I tried to explain them to someone else in a conversation I realized either that my thought was still incomplete and/or tangled, or that there were gaps and inconsistencies in the thought, pointed out to me in conversation.
I have had emotions that I felt deeply and passionately, but when I tried to write them down the passion faded or seemed irrational. This has been especially helpful when I have experienced emotions that can become negative, like sadness or anger.
As we grow old
Our hope wanes
And we attempt to birth
What we ourselves
Failed to become
August 17, 2021 at 11:54AM
At the library
I learned a little
About meter
This morning
I put my ear
On her chest
buh-BUM
buh-BUM
buh-BUM
The heart
Is a poet
Beating on
In eternal
Iambic
August 15, 2021 at 10:27AM
I can
Only taste
The first
Few sips
Of wine
In sips
Other than
The first
There is
Only a
Vague sense
That the
Liquid is
Alcoholic
Whether it
Is because
I am
Drunk, or
My taste
Buds have
Become bored
In either
Case, I
See little
Point in
Finishing
My glass
August 13, 2021 at 09:13PM
No matter how long
The darkness
Seems to be stretching
At night
A day
Will surely come
With its light
Once again
August 13, 2021 at 03:44PM
How high
I dream
Until I wake
In a body
Unprepared
To jump up
To the heights
I dreamed of
August 13, 2021 at 03:41PM
As if her being naked
Were not already enough
She got up and walked
Past the window
So I could see
In the light
The beauty I’d felt
In the dark
August 13, 2021 at 03:39PM
How sincerely
I wish
For what
When given
I forget
So easily
To be grateful
August 12, 2021 at 03:31PM
I am writing
The way
I know how
Which has changed
As I’ve
Gone on
When I read
And enjoy, a writer
Who writes differently
I think to myself,
“Gee, maybe
I should write like that”
But then I read
Another writer
Who writes like me
I think, “Well,
The way I write
Is just fine”
But neither
Should affect me
I know
I should just write
The way
That I do
August 12, 2021 at 12:14PM
Summer
Used to mean something
When we got off school
Now
It’s just the hottest
Of the seasons
And we work
Right on through
Sweating
August 10, 2021 at 02:42PM
After I
Have gotten drunk
And danced
I remember
There are things
I’m supposed to have
And I check
My pockets
In a sober moment
For my wallet
And keys
August 08, 2021 at 04:37PM
Is seeing young people
And discerning them
As different
Than yourself
August 08, 2021 at 04:28PM
Is it too obviously
Ironic
When fat people
Embarrassedly eat
More food
Than’s normal
August 08, 2021 at 04:22PM
Is the aloneness
A musician experiences
On stage
Performing for a crowd
Any different
Than the aloneness
They experienced
When they played
Just for themselves?
August 08, 2021 at 04:17PM
Three-legged dogs
Are heroes
Because having four legs
Seems to be such
An integral part
Of a dog’s life
It’s like a person
That has lost
One of their senses
It’s so sad
Because it’s such
A human thing
To sense
But then it’s inspiring
When despite
Their loss of humanness
They carry on
As humans nonetheless
August 08, 2021 at 04:04PM
Along the walkway
I’ve watched
At least a thousand different people
Walk by
While I’m supposed to be watching
The musician on stage
So far away
I can barely see
But I honestly enjoy watching
The people on the walkway
Much more
If I could pay admission
To somewhere I could sit
And unabashedly
Watch people walk by
I would pay that admission
As happily as I have
To any other show
August 08, 2021 at 04:01PM
It’s not that complicated
The emotion is real
Complicating it with words
Won’t get you any closer
To the original emotion
If these authors
Of thousand-page volumes
Were honest with themselves
About why they write
In the first place
God, I don’t know what they would do
Maybe they would just kill themselves
So maybe they are
Better off just writing
And maybe someone will read it
But it doesn’t matter
What matters is the writer
Did something for a while
Other than kill themselves
August 08, 2021 at 03:32PM
Have we done enough
In the meantime
To earn our right
To eat and sleep
Again
God damn
That’s all we do
Eat, sleep, eat, sleep
Try to fuck
With a semblance
Of the passion
That some great great
Grandfather of mine
Who I will never know
Fucked with
The passion he fucked with
That birthed
All the generations
That fucked with
Gradually less and less passion
As certain men and women
Fucked with such passion
To birth, not more
Men and women
But advances in science
That established so strongly
Our position on this earth
As a species
That those of us now
Don’t know what the fuck
To do with ourselves
It’s all a big sham
In these modern times
The only life that’s real
Is the surviving
The eating and being eaten
The sex and reproduction
And these originals acts
We still perform
But we are only
Going through the motions
There are no
Noble professions left
Other than
Being a burnout
Our species has burnt out
The only generations
That had to fight
In order to survive
Have long since died
Everything we do now
Is just killing time
Literally thousands of people
Over thousands of years
Have spent their lifetimes
Trying to come up with
Some meaning for our existence
And they can’t fucking do it
We’ve taken over the whole planet
And now we just want it to mean something
In the meantime
As we continue to exist
On the planet we’ve conquered
Each of us as individuals even
Want our individuals lives to mean something
Fuck me man
For once I should publish a poem
With all the expletives
And the rawness
As I wrote it
Because god damn
Of course I’m going to edit out
All the curse words
When I’m sitting in the apartment
And not feeling a damn thing
Other than the desire
To make the poetry good somehow
August 08, 2021 at 02:58PM
The stage is set
For the band to come on
The musicians
Are doomed to play
They could not
Walk out onto that stage
And do anything other
Than play
Their instruments
Are already set out for them
The opener has already
Come on and gone
The crowd has waited
For long enough
They could not come out
And take a nap
They could not come out
And eat lunch
There is not a single other thing
They could do
Other than walk out
Onto that stage
And play
Like we all expect them to
August 08, 2021 at 02:53PM
Did I capture
Consciousness
In its rawest
She asks me
Sarcastically
After I’ve written
I know
She really means,
“Pay attention to me!”
She won’t admit
She doesn’t like when I write
When I’m with her
But her question
In the first place
Was rather apt
I go back
And read what I wrote
To give her an answer
August 08, 2021 at 02:14PM
I always want
Want, want
When will I
Be satisfied
Even when
I am, after
Having gotten
What I wanted
It lasts
Only briefly
Before another want
Assails me
I know
Or, I have heard
There are ways
Not to want
Most of them
Eastern
America wants
Not to want
But we fail
Before we start
Because wanting
Not to want
Is still
Wanting
August 08, 2021 at 02:05PM
With my fists
Half-heartedly
Balled up
(Without vigor
Enough to make
My knuckles white)
And stuffed
Into the pockets
Of my jeans
I lean my bony hip
Against
The marble countertop
And wait
For the hot water
In the kettle
It does
Eventually
Bubble audibly
I look up
At the cracks
In the ceiling
And exhale
In the dark
Of the kitchen
(We leave the lights off
To save
On electricity)
Before I can
Pour the water
Into my mug
I walk away
To write
This
August 08, 2021 at 09:37AM
What crazy things
We wonder
When we are alone
In our minds
What impossibilities
We figure feasible
For the satisfaction
Of our fancies
What horrors
We conjure up
Only to have
Fodder for fear
What dreams
To hope
Especially
When we have none
August 07, 2021 at 09:53PM
To the thorned
Blackberry branch
Overhanging
The path in the park
Of those walkers
Unaware
How many
Naked shins
Have you cut?
August 06, 2021 at 04:19PM
At first, it was only
To remove a bit of soap
From my eye
That I held its lid open
Under the direct spray
Of shower water
But even after blinking
And feeling the sting
Had been banished
I opened my lid again
And looked back up
Into the waterfall
Just to feel something
Even uncomfortable
Is better than nothing
August 05, 2021 at 06:23PM
The heat
From the oven
Warms my face
Almost to the point
Of perspiration
As I reach in
To carefully place
Slices of bread
Without burning myself
On the baking sheet
That I should have removed
But forgot
Before I turned on
The oven
August 05, 2021 at 12:02PM
I struggle with my work
And feel sorry
For myself,
But then I see
A fallen leaf
In the soil
Of the potted plant
Atop our dresser
A construction worker
With dirt and sweat
On his shirt
Leaning over, exhausted
And I realize
I’m not the only one,
Which makes me feel
A little better
August 05, 2021 at 10:36AM
Walked
To the window
In the bedroom
Looked down
At the sidewalk
Just in time
To see—
Running out of sight
Underneath
The bay window
Next to ours—
A pair of legs
Not-too-skinny
Dressed in denim,
A hand
Holding a grocery sack
Blowing in the wind,
And sneakers
With lime-green
Stripes on the sides
August 04, 2021 at 10:02AM
A fly crawls up
On the rose quartz
In the crystal grid
My girlfriend arranged
Atop the dresser
The fly takes flight
And buzzes
Over to the light
Of my laptop
Open next to the grid
Now
I feel good enough
To find this
Fantastic
Other times
I would swat the fly
For disturbing
My work
August 04, 2021 at 09:46AM
Our love’s
Not the only thing
That’s been dying
Around here
The bananas
In the fruit bowl
Have black spots
And flies
The arms
Of the cactus
In the window
Are discolored
The leftover chili
Has been sitting
In the back of the fridge
For weeks
And now
The construction men
Have knocked out
The power
August 03, 2021 at 11:45AM
While sick
Things seem
Different
My healthy mind
Is not awake
To impose
Its assumptions
My energy
Is focused
On surviving
In a moment
I forget my sickness
And see
A puddle
From the broken fridge
On the kitchen floor
Like
I was seeing a puddle
For the first time
I stood there
For as long
As my shaky legs
Would hold me
July 28, 2021 at 09:25AM
About whether
The tea bags belong
In the utensil drawer
Or the pantry
I have no energy
To argue
It seems to me
Unimportant—
Where things
Should be arranged
In our home
But she believes
In the art of it
July 28, 2021 at 07:56AM
Every new piece of furniture
That gets delivered
Every piece of art
That I help her hang
Every plant that gets added
To my weekly watering routine
Every welcome wine bottle
The neighbors bring
Makes me that much
More certain
I’m never getting out
Of this domestic prison
July 26, 2021 at 04:15PM
On the logs
Along the trail
There are
Fluorescent
Yellow markers
Screwed in
Two per log
So bikers
Can see the logs
At night
And avoid them
Some logs
Have only one
And a few
Have none
But I know
They were there
Because I can see
The screws
That held them
In place
I search
For the escaped
Yellow markers
In the forest foliage
Beyond
The log barrier
But they are nowhere
To be found
I wonder where
The yellow markers
Have gone
And what occupation
They have taken up
Instead of the one
They were screwed into
>>>
On the logs along the trail
There are fluorescent yellow markers
Screwed in, two per log
So bikers can see the logs at night
And avoid them
Some logs have only one marker
And a few have none
But I know they were there
Because I can see the screws
That held them in place
I search for the escaped yellow markers
In the forest foliage beyond the log barrier
But they are nowhere to be found
I wonder where the yellow markers have gone
And what occupation they have taken up
Instead of the one they were screwed into
July 26, 2021 at 09:49AM
Healthy
And already overwhelmed
The door creaking
Barely open
And then shut
Would have been
An unwelcome
Interruption
To the rare silence
I find
In my bedroom
Sick
I was bored
And grateful
For anyone
Who would talk to me
Even a creaky
Old door
July 25, 2021 at 12:51PM
Sick
I sat
On the edge
Of the bed
Shivering
Watching
The workers
Wearing
Orange vests
Outside
Working
On the street
One
With a shovel
In the trench
Sticking it
Into the dirt
And then stepping
With his boot
To drive it deeper
Another
In the yellow
Backhoe
Digging out
The trench
The big bucket
Of the backhoe
Dumped
Into a white
Dump truck
July 23, 2021 at 11:21AM
I am telling you
Exactly
What you
Already know
The wise men
Talk in metaphors
To stay
Wise
All that art
You don’t understand
Isn’t meant to be
Understood
Turns out
You can
Judge a book
By its cover
If it doesn’t tell you
What you need to know
On the back
Then it’s probably
Not
Worth reading
July 22, 2021 at 09:29PM
I do
Have
A scar there
Where
The baking pan
Branded me
With a reminder
Of my carelessness
July 22, 2021 at 09:11PM
Is a fact
Both depressing
And freeing
At the same time
July 22, 2021 at 10:53AM
Every word
Is further
From the truth
The fewer
The better
July 22, 2021 at 10:53AM
I want that word
To hit
No adjective
Need modify
Such a noun
With strength
To say
What it will
On its own
July 22, 2021 at 10:52AM
I’m susceptible to it
Today
To lift off
I can tell because
I take
My first sip
Of tea
And my brain bumps
The top
Of my skull
Like an astronaut
In zero gravity
And when I look
Through my eyes
Like windows
On a spaceship
Everything
That just before
Seemed perfectly
Terrestrial
Now seems
Terribly alien
July 22, 2021 at 10:52AM
In its glass pot
On the marble countertop
In the other room
But I might just wait
Let it cool
And heat up more hot water
A little later
After I’ve done my work
That might not go so well
If my hands are shaking
And my mind is racing
As tends to happen
When I drink tea
July 22, 2021 at 10:48AM
I look alien
In the mirror
In the instant before
I recognize myself
And my preconceptions
Load
Like a computer file
But in the instant
While the pinwheel
Still spins
And I am seeing
Beneath the veil
Splotchy skin,
Lopsided pectorals,
Crooked jaw
Rectangular prism,
Cylinder,
Cube
Color,
Light,
Dimension
Who am I
When I forget?
July 20, 2021 at 10:00PM
Up the crumbling
Stone steps
Next
To the lemon tree
In the backyard
That we can see
Through our window
But cannot access
Because it’s only
For our neighbors
Who pay more rent
Than we do
A black and white
Cat
Crept calmly
As cats do
Sat back
On its haunches
And looked left
Then right
And saw me
In the window
Watching it
And watched
Me back
Still
As a statue
For a while
We watched
One another
Then the cat
Lifted its leg
And licked itself
To show me
How much
Of a threat
It thought
I was
July 20, 2021 at 07:45PM
The knife
Makes a song
Of two notes
As I cut potato
Slicing
Away from me
The angle
Cut through
The gold
Is such that
The blade
Slides off
And bangs
Onto
The board
Then I make
The opposite cut
Down
And towards me
So that the blade
Meets the board
Muffled
On either side
By potato flesh
And so
The note
Is duller
And on I cut
Out
And away
Banging
Back
And towards me
Muffled
July 20, 2021 at 03:42PM
I walk by
A professional dog walker
In the park
Holding the leashes
Of six dogs
And wonder
What the rich owners
Of the dogs
Are doing
Such that they cannot
Walk
Their own dogs
July 20, 2021 at 10:05AM
With my eyes closed,
My legs crossed,
And my hands on my knees
Sitting on a Mexican blanket
Folded and laid atop
A fallen log
I started to hear drops
Falling
On the leaves and the dirt
This
Broke the concentration
Of my meditation
As I worried
That it might
Start to pour
I forgot about it
And remembered
My breath
Uncrossed my legs,
Got a book out of my bag,
And stood up
I felt something fall
And bounce
Off the top of my head
And into
The crease
Of the open book
It was a twig
No longer
Than a quarter inch
It had not
Been rain
Falling
It was pieces
Of the trees
Cast down
July 20, 2021 at 09:31AM
In a nightmare it occurs to me
That I can become the scary thing myself
So I make myself light,
Float up somewhere near the ceiling,
And shriek high and loud
My victims get out of bed, terrified
And run through hallways in their nightgowns
Stumbling against the walls
I don’t actually mean to scare
I never wanted to be a scary thing
I just wanted to not be scared myself
So I try to float down from the ceiling
To tell my victims it’s okay
It’s just me and I’m not scary
But all that comes out is a shriek
And that’s when the nightmare
Became truly scary
July 19, 2021 at 11:18PM
Two burners going on the stovetop
Shelves in the pantry freshly stocked with groceries
Diced onions next to the knife on the cutting board
A shower that runs hot or cold
A sink faucet with as much water as I could drink
My girlfriend in the other room on the phone
A computer with access to limitless knowledge
Shirts hanging in the closet
Pants and underwear in the dresser
July 19, 2021 at 11:28AM
After I had gotten
Out of the shower
Before I went
For a walk outside
I opened the second-
From-the-bottom
Drawer
In the five-drawer
Dresser
And took out
A t-shirt
But considered
Before putting it on
That I might be cold
So I put the t-shirt
Back in the drawer,
Took out
A long-sleeved shirt
And pulled that one
Over my head
Instead
July 19, 2021 at 09:51AM
The water
Got even hotter
As the heater
Heated it up
And sent it
Boiling
Through the pipes
I could not finish
Washing my hands
Without them burning
And so I
Took the handle
And turned it
To the left
To cool
July 19, 2021 at 09:47AM
In a storm
The rain peppers the windshield
Making a rapid
Pattering noise
Under the bridge
There is a moment
Of clarity
As the windshield clears
And the pattering stops
Until we come out on the other side
And the windshield blurs again
And the noise even louder
In contrast to the momentary quiet
July 18, 2021 at 01:57PM
I want it
To pack a quick punch
There are too many people in the world
Too much to read
Too much distraction
People don’t read novels anymore
If you only had one sentence
What would it be?
July 18, 2021 at 10:52AM
My girlfriend told me
That my grandma told her
That black people
Had slaves too
We sat in the cabana
At the rooftop pool
In Nashville
And talked about
Whether it was worth it
To try and convince people
Who are stuck in their ways
I told my girlfriend
I didn’t think
It was worth it
Or even possible
She said she thought it was
Because all people have souls
And all people have depth
She is making progress
In convincing me of this
I am arrogant to assume
That some people
Aren’t worth talking to
I assume they can’t
See the truth
But I am guilty
Of the same inability
If I won’t talk to them
And listen
And really try to understand
July 18, 2021 at 10:45AM
In Nashville sitting at the bar
In a diner for breakfast
After waiting in line for an hour
I got disgusted with the city
All at once
And couldn’t even order
When the waitress asked me
What I wanted
I just had to get out and away
From the food, the alcohol
The obesity, the intoxication
My dad told me
When we were waiting in line
That the wait was so long
Because everyone was still
Collecting their unemployment checks
Once I got out and walked
On the sidewalk
I saw a homeless man
Shirtless in the hot sun
Still not sure
Whether he should be awake
Or asleep
Or what he should do
I smelled the grossness of the city
The vomit from the man
We saw sitting on the curb
Last night
His friend was holding his head
To keep him upright
The leftover food in the trash cans
The sweat
The smells from the street food carts
That would have normally
Incited my appetite
Mixing with the foul smells
Made me want to vomit
More than I wanted to eat
I wanted to purge myself,
The people walking by
To eat, to drink
More
Already eating, drinking
On their way
To eat, to drink
More
I walked faster
To sweat, to move my muscles
To work
To do the opposite
Of eating, and drinking
More
It’s no wonder
How more than half the people
I saw walking around the city
Were obese
Every egg scramble
On the menu at the diner
Had cheese in it
All the tables were full
Of families, couples
And bachelorette parties
Eating, drinking
Smiling, laughing
Talking about where
They would eat and drink
Later that night
Sitting in their hotel rooms
Watching TV
In between meals
And bouts of drinking
July 18, 2021 at 10:27AM
I woke up
Sideways
In bed
Rolled down
Longways
To the foot
And lived
Days differently
From then on
Getting out of bed
On neither
The left nor the right
The right nor the wrong
But an altogether
Other
Escape from morality
And judgment
Through the hatch
At the bottom
Out
From underneath
Tucked-in sheets
July 17, 2021 at 04:42AM
I want to want
What I have wanted before
I know the wanting
Precedes the satisfaction
But I still try to force it
The sandwich and chips
I ate for lunch yesterday
Were delicious
Today, it is lunchtime
And I want to want
The sandwich and chips
So that I can satisfy
The same hunger
But I want something different
I don’t know what
I want to want
What I’ve wanted before
Because it’s easier
I learned to love
When I moved to San Francisco
I stayed up all night with strangers
I want to want that again
But I am comfortable
To hunger for a sandwich
Like when I returned home
From a hike yesterday
To lust for sex
As when I was young
And didn’t know what it was
July 16, 2021 at 03:22PM
After days of drunkenness
Sobriety seems
A more novel experience
Just to change my mind
Which is the same reason
I started drinking
In the first place
July 15, 2021 at 08:39PM
In my mind
My father’s face
Is as young as I remember it
When I was nine or ten
But in reality, it’s older now
More wrinkles
Red cheeks and nose
Visible veins
I didn’t realize until
I look at photo albums
At a family reunion
With his dad (my grandpa)
Who turned eighty yesterday
And see photos of my dad
When he was really young
And had blonde highlights in his hair
And smiled in all the photos
I wonder if my grandpa’s face
Is as young in my dad’s mind
As my dad’s is in mine
And what it will be like
When my dad’s as old
As my grandpa is now
I wonder how my dad feels
About my grandpa getting closer
To dying
It occurs to me only now
As I write this
That I should ask him
And leave nothing unsaid
July 15, 2021 at 06:34PM
P.S. This should be prose, not poetry.
As if there weren’t
Any other way
Of seeing things
My grandpa talked to me
About work and money
And asked whether
What I had been doing
Since quitting my job
Made any
If it didn’t
Then he didn’t
Want to hear about it
Writing,
Especially poetry,
Doesn’t make much
So we didn’t have
Much to talk about
July 13, 2021 at 02:25PM
I pulled back the cue
And held my breath
Playing pool with my brothers
In the basement
For a moment in the quiet
As I held my breath
And my brothers
Held theirs too
We could hear our parents
Arguing upstairs
July 12, 2021 at 07:50PM
My fingers feel
Bonier than usual
While washing my hands
Like lifeless cylinders
Unfeeling as they rub
Against each other
Windchimes
That collide
But make no sound
The calluses
Have calluses
The feeling skin
Wears away
Skeletons hands
Can grab, lift,
And carry as much
As skinless hands
So why not
Peel away
The excess layer
Like wrapping
On a package
July 12, 2021 at 03:50PM
It is this
Which comes on
Only as this can
Fast and strong
Out of contrast
As its opposite
Retreats
With equal speed
In the other direction
Out
As this
Comes
In
July 11, 2021 at 08:40AM
I cue in on
Just one aspect
Of her personality
As if it were
All of her
July 10, 2021 at 06:12AM
A moment
Which was in the future
In the past
Is now
Now
I am not surprised
I knew
This was coming
But it’s still
Surreal
To see the bones
Of an imagining
Dressed
In the flesh
Of reality
July 10, 2021 at 06:09AM
As if I had just seen
My fingernails
For the first time
Pissing
In the basement
Bathroom
Of the bar
On Broadway
For what seemed like
Forever
So what did I have to do
But look at my nails
And wait
To finish my piss
And then go upstairs
To get the drink
They said they would
Order for me
July 09, 2021 at 09:59PM
My pain invites me to grapple with my mortality on a daily basis. For all my life, I have been healthy. More than that, I have been strong and capable. My dad used to tell me, “I was too rough on my body when I was young. Now I’m paying the price for it.” I’m starting to pay the price too. What is life without a strong and capable body? What really is dying is my old way of life. Maybe I’m still a ways away from my ultimate end. But I will die several small deaths before then.
There is no point. First, what does have a point? Survival seems to be the most widely accepted point of doing anything. For a long time, there was no point in doing anything other than what was required to survive because, if we did not, then we would have died and we would not have been able to carry on much longer with the pointless activity upon dying. But we are past that now. Can we now begin to spend our time on pointless activities?
My parents would feel better if I get a job. They would prefer that to me being a poet. Where does this obsession with working come from?
I myself feel a little guilt when I spend an entire day and all I have to show for it is maybe twenty or thirty lines of poetry. It seems like very little compared to the economic production of which I know I am capable from having worked a job before.
The plastic bags
My girlfriend deem
Excess
Are left
In the tall and narrow cabinet
Beside
The dishwasher
July 08, 2021 at 02:30PM
For as long as I
Can lie on my side
Looking at the light
Bleeding in ever so softly
Through the white, wooden slats
Strung together and hung
To face the fury of the sun
Staying in bed until noon
Free from the day’s oppression
Would not be possible
Without their bravery
I yawn, smack my lips,
And close my eyes again
To return to rest
In their honor
July 08, 2021 at 09:42AM
Dug my fingers
Into yellow flesh
Clutched wooden heart
With nails
Sucked sweet strings
Of nectar
Until there was none left
But what dripped
From my chin
July 07, 2021 at 11:41AM
There is no
Expiration date
On my hunger
Only a sign
Like the ones you see
In the window
When a shopkeeper
Goes to lunch,
“Be back in 30”
July 07, 2021 at 10:16AM
Words express the “manifested” world.
When you go deeper into your Self, there is a point when words no longer serve their communicative purpose.
Because communication between two consciousnesses is like this …
Firsthand experience of the speaker –> Words –> Secondhand experience of the listener
If you attempt to communicate the depths of your own spiritual journey to another consciousness, after you have gone deep in your own journey, there is a lot of work involved in retracing your steps and defining terms.
In my personal journey, I started writing as a way to express my questions, discoveries, inspirations.
It was always a spiritual journey. My writing was my ego wanting to bring the unmanifested to the manifested for its own benefit. I am growing to a point in my spiritual journey when I can leave things unwritten.
Other than my ego, why else do I need to manifest the unmanifested in the form of words?
Does there have to be a reason for it?
I am drawn to poetry because it is minimal, in terms of word usage (less words).
It is also approachable for the reader, easier to start reading a poem than a novel.
My emotion about my back pain is more about the future of the pain. Will it ever go away? Is it something more serious than just muscle tightness?
In the present moment, my back pain is just that, pain. And pain is only a sensation, not necessarily a negative one.
I don’t mind living
On rice and beans
If that means
I can think for myself
All twenty-four hours
Of the day
But I grew up
In the grocery store
Begging my mom
For sugar cereal
Learned the capitals
Of all fifty states
Instead of hunting buffalo
On horseback
Went to college
On government loans
Instead of walking
To the water
Got my first job
In a big city
Instead of moving
With the herd
Soared too high
On the dollar
Like a folded
Paper airplane
Even if I ever landed
Back on earth
I would not know how
To live there
July 06, 2021 at 07:40PM
The tag
On the pillow
Rustled
In the wind
Coming through
The open window
As if a bird
Had flown through
And alighted
On the couch
Making the same noise
With its wings
July 06, 2021 at 05:08PM
Why do I deserve
This boredom
This right
To do nothing
Is this the freedom
The revolutionaries
Fought for
Is this the luxury
The industrialists
Worked for
For me
To lie in bed
Until noon
Eat the food
Delivered
To my door
And struggle only
To find new ways
Of entertaining myself
July 06, 2021 at 04:34PM
Like a pool
With a sign that says,
“No diving”
But my hands
Are what really
Limit me
See, the sign
Did not say,
“No digging”
So I could go
And get
A jackhammer
Break through
The cement bottom
Of the pool
Then a shovel
To dig deeper
Into the dirt
There are no
Shallow thoughts;
Just shallow tools
July 06, 2021 at 10:31AM
Flowers, I thought
Were the fancy
Of hummingbirds
But this one
Hovers above
Bare, green leaves
Dewdrops, perhaps
It picks
With its needle beak
To punctuate
Its taste
Of sweet nectar
With dull dew
July 06, 2021 at 09:10AM
A loose thread
In the process
Of escaping
From the hem
At sheet’s end
Wiggles with each
Of my deep breaths
In bed
Blowing it
Like wind, a leaf
July 06, 2021 at 08:46AM
What are you capable of
Ghost
If you are merely
As your name suggests
I will pass on
Through you
Unobstructed
And unafraid
But if you are
More than just
A mirage,
A trick on my eyes
More than
A soul with no body
If you can
Enter my world
If you can
Grab me, stab me
I will be very,
Very afraid
July 05, 2021 at 01:34PM
In the moment
That you meet someone
Who is like
An apple cart
Rolling down a hill
You can see them
Shooting by
Even pick up an apple
And bite into
Its sweetness
But to go along
For their reckless ride
Would be both
To leave your
Present place
And also to share
In their eventual crash
July 04, 2021 at 10:01PM
I lifted my shirt collar
Over the bridge of my nose
To sneeze
Then turned it
Inside out
To check for snot
July 04, 2021 at 07:21PM
I forget
To eat
To give my girlfriend
Attention
To change
Postures
To breathe
Even
When I really
Get into it
I feel like
A kamikaze
Not caring for
My corporal form
If I could just
Get this one
Down
Is a cause
I could die for
Longer lines:
I forget to eat
To give my girlfriend attention
To change postures
To breathe even
When I really get into it
I feel like a kamikaze
Not caring for my corporal form
If I could just get this one down
Is a cause I could die for
July 04, 2021 at 06:53PM
I held onto the metal bar above the doorway into the basketball court, doing leg raises. He stood on the other side of the chain-link fence, behind a storage container to shield him from the wind. He was drawing on a pad atop a tripod. I wanted to know what he was drawing, but I could not decide if I would go over and ask. By the time I finished my exercises, I had decided that I would.
I walked over and asked, “Do you mind if I take a look?” He stopped drawing, looked up, and, after taking a moment to resurface from his deep, drawing thoughts, said, “Oh, yea, sure, it’s not finished, but …” Then he took a step back and lifted his hand, palm facing up, to point at the pad, signaling to me that I was invited to see. I stepped into the studio he had made with a dirt floor and two walls—one, storage container; the other, chain link.
It was a pencil sketch of a tree. There was smudging that made a sort of background and eraser marks that looked like calligraphy—one art form within another. It was obviously a tree. The trunk and the branches were clear to see, but it was still unfinished.
As I was admiring the sketch, I remembered that I was meeting a stranger at the same time as I was admiring an artist’s work—both of which are events normally accompanied by certain manners. I said, “The eraser marks are interesting.” And explained how they looked, to me, like calligraphy.
He then explained how he used the eraser as part of the drawing process. He would erase to create a lighter shade and then wipe across it with a cotton swab to make a purposeful smudge.
We went back and forth about the sketch itself. He taught me about his methods and I asked questions. Lately, he had been using a ruler to get the scale right. Otherwise, he said, he would get carried away with drawing a certain part of the sketch—say, one bough—and then it would end up out of proportion with the rest of the sketch. So his solution for this was to buy a ruler at the art store and make tick marks along the length of the page that corresponded to different parts of the tree. Scale had been on his mind a lot recently. He wanted to draw the tree as it was.
I cannot remember all of what Henry said. I tried to be present in the conversation, rather than just trying to remember. But I do wish to record a few certain things he said that really struck me.
I explained to him that I was a writer and that I knew what he meant about how you can’t be too willy-nilly when you’re getting down your first draft because then you will create a mountainous task for yourself when it comes time to edit. The closer you can get it on the first draft, the more time you can spend getting it even closer during editing. Of course, this is balanced with not being so focused on getting your inspiration crammed so perfectly into what you preconceive as the proper form that you end up choking the energy and vibrancy that gave life to the work in the first place. We agreed there is a balance between form and energy, structure and chaos.
I also told him that sometimes I have an experience and become frustrated when I struggle to write it such that it is equal to the beauty, sadness, joy, brilliance, or whatever I am feeling so greatly myself because I wish for others to feel it too, via my writing, but I know they will not be able to if I cannot fit the writing within a tight enough pipe that it gets to them like a firehose.
And that is really what we were getting at. I may be putting it in different words but I can feel now, writing it, the same as I did an hour ago, talking to Henry about it, so here it is. There is a dichotomy. Many analogies demonstrate it clearly—solid and fluid, structure and chaos, form and energy, wind and tunnel. Let’s use solid and fluid—water in a hose, to be precise. The water is the energy. The hose is the form. Making art is the process of turning on the water and having it flow through the hose.
The water is what the artist feels. It is the emotion, idea, or inspiration. It gets into the artist. A painter beholds a nature landscape. A dancer is filled with potential energy for movement. A comedy writer overhears a funny conversation.
But does the artist have a hose? Does the painter have a keen painter’s eye to see the colors in the autumn leaves and choose the corresponding colors from his palette? Has the dancer trained and flexed her muscles so that her body is capable of the great leap to which her spirit aspires? Does the writer have the skill to translate the elusive rhythm of spoken comedy to the written word?
This is not the kind of hose that can be bought at the hardware store. It is more than just the painter’s brush, the dancer’s body, or the writer’s pen. It is the craft itself.
Many times I have been overflowing with water that I cannot force into my hose; in other words, I am overwhelmed with an experience that I cannot write. I can write some of it, but there are holes in my hose. There are holes because my craft is still of an amateur. My vocabulary has not expanded to the far reaches of the language. I have not read enough to gather a sufficient stylistic inventory. My words don’t sing in perfect harmony with the music of language.
The water wells up in me and I drown in the ecstasy on which I am already drunk and would readily pour out into the glasses of others so that they could be drunk with me. But my hose is holey and all that comes out the other end is a dribble. I cannot spray out of myself strong enough for my readers to be dancing in the water as in a sprinkler during a hot summer day.
On this, Henry gave me advice. He said that my experiences as a young man are ephemeral and I need to freeze them while I can. That means writing down my experiences with the writing skill that I now possess. As I grow as a writer, my craft will develop. Then I can return to my earlier works and raise them to the level of my heightened craft. Henry said that he had done this with sketches from his younger years.
A text from Henry the next morning (07/05/21) at 3:51am:
I can see the distant bay but I cannot touch it or use any other senses to flesh its reality. My awareness of rests on its image in my mind. Without embodiment, reality drifts into fantasm. “Feeling of reality” (referring to a term used by Andre Gide) is a little litmus strip one end is informed by all the senses and is rooted and the other has less sensation and is more ethereal and seems fantastic.
An odd wish
To want
What you already have
July 04, 2021 at 04:02PM
I don’t mind
The bathroom
At a restaurant
Being dirty
As long
As the food
Is cheap
July 04, 2021 at 02:26PM
I did not know
That fish could frown
As those in the tank
At the dim sum restaurant
Do
July 04, 2021 at 02:23PM
Blonde pigtails
Dripping down
The back
Of her wet suit
Stood watching
Waiting
For her chance
Then ran, slouched,
And slid her board
Along
The wet beach
Where from
A wave
Had just retreated
Jumped on
And skimmed
Out to the water
In a moment
Of grace
Gliding atop
The froth
Then slowed,
Stopped,
Waved her arms,
Wobbled,
And fell
Splash!
Belly-first
Into the water
July 04, 2021 at 01:15PM
She waited
Until after
A couple of drinks
At the bar
Before she asked
In an off-hand
Kind of blasè
Way
What street
He lived on
So he
Would not know
That she
Was sleeping around
Rent-free
To see
What neighborhood
She would like
To live in
July 04, 2021 at 01:03PM
The glass
Of the bottle
And the air
Are all that separate
Me
From the molecules
That once
Have trickled
Down the hatch
And had
A second
To take effect
Would make
Me feel
For a time
Grand
And above it
But I think
I’ll have cereal
Instead
July 04, 2021 at 10:01AM
Crackers spill
From the plastic
I look
At how they lie
And consider
They could be
Arranged
More beautifully
Than they happened
To spill out
So I stack them
In a row
But the order
Is even uglier
So I pray
The taste
Will be the board’s
Redeemer
July 03, 2021 at 05:26PM
At the man in the car
Who stopped
For my teammate
To run across the street
And grab the ball
Out of the gutter
I don’t know you
Dear driver sir
But in this moment
We are connected
By my waving
And you’re seeing it
And stopping
July 02, 2021 at 07:02PM
I lie on the floor
Touching
The rug, the floor,
The brick, the wall
Any texture to make
I stand
On my head
With my feet up against
The wall
So the blood will rush
Down
And make
I start a song
And skip to another
That I hope
Will make
I read
The first few lines
Of a poem
And then the next few
Before I’ve understood
The first few
Searching
For what will make
In the fridge
There may be leftovers
To make
In some club
After nightfall
Deep underground
There she may be
Dancing alone
Just waiting to make
I crawl into bed
And touch her
Hair, skin
Look and ask her
To make
July 02, 2021 at 04:14PM
At some point
I’ve got to go
With what I’ve
Already got
And stop the getting
Just
To get on
July 02, 2021 at 04:13PM
Bim! Bim! Bim!
The experiences come
Crammed once
Into thoughts
Crammed twice now
Into words
What is left over for you
My poor dear lover
Who I have not
Yet met
Though I wish to meet
All of you
If you happen
To be multiple
Or just one
Would be fine too
If you really are the One
Having not yet found you
Oh grandmaster God
With more pronouns
Than I can fit on a line
While still maintaining
The rhythm of the words
Broken up
By appropriate line breaks
The music of it
Makes so much sense
That it need be born
Into poetry
Which can be reduced
To oblivion
As long as that oblivion
Is still broken into verse
Because there must be
A music to oblivion
It cannot come all at once
Just bah!
And there it is
No, it must come on somehow
And so
There must be the line breaks
It comes a little
And then breaks
Comes a little more
And then breaks again
You are feeling it, aren’t you?
As if you were here
With me now
Fuck the couplet
Let it be one line
If it wills
The blind adherence to form
Has been the circumcision
Of so much good art
That would have otherwise
Bled on past the margins
Margins, which our boundless souls
Must be forced into
For how else could we survive?
And by “survive,” I mean
For our physical bodies
To persist, in time
Out of sync, I’ve gotten
The words overpowered the rhythm
Which is how it happens
Sometimes
Like back when I said
Fuck the couplet
All so harmonious
And rhythmic
It feels to me now
As it’s all music
On mushrooms
But how can I bring it back
Why
Do I need to bring it back?
But then
What am I to do?
Mushrooms all the time?
Is this life for me?
Or is it for others?
Beautiful, it is, when
By being me
I am for others
In a way they want
And so I wish for it
Crying on my knees
Begging please
But I would jump up
Just so giddy
The very next second
You would say I am crazy
As we are accustomed to calling
Anyone who can experience
Those two very different emotions
Deep serious sadness
And singing joy
So suddenly
One after the other
But I can, I tell you
I can
So much
That it seems most appropriate
To dance and sing
Out of my skin even
Explode into all of it
Around me
Return to what I know I am
But forget, I do
When I am not on mushrooms
And the problem
Is the rawness
How can I shave it down
Real particular
Into a needle that will pass
With little pain
Through the pore
Of a sober man
So the only pain he must endure
Is either
Reading, listening,
Or watching
Into his soul, I must pass
Somehow
How do I get in
Through his body
He has holes
His nose holes
His ear holes
His mouth hole
The pores of his skin
How can I get in?
Not to take you by force,
Dear brother, no
Take me, if you would
Please
I come onto you so strong
With all the desire
That is really my own desire
To be come onto
In disguise
Care not, we need
About who is coming
That we are coming
Together
While we still can
Is the point
But the great song and dance
Is just that
Called so
For a reason
The arts are how
We’ve all agreed
To come onto one another
And really enjoy it
With the ecstasy
That is otherwise only appropriate
Behind the closed doors of a bedroom
Where we have shut our sex
Into such a modern construction
For where did we fuck
Before there were closed doors
And beds with sheets
Out through the cracks
Around the hinges
Through the keyhole
Oozing out from behind that closed door
Our sex learned to define itself
Because getting out of the bedroom
Was only the first step
And then past
The guards at the door
Was the second step
So we disguised our sex
Into art
Song, dance, poetry
We sang to the guards
Danced to the guards
Read to the guards
And they let us go
Out of the doors
And we ran free
And ran and ran
Until we were exhausted and hungry
So we ate and slept
And then woke to run
But to where?
We ran for years
Until we realized
The love we were chasing
Came from the guards
The bedroom was ourselves
They locked us in there
Locked us in ourselves
What a trick!
And all the fucking desire we had
To fuck
Was for the guards
Whomever they may be
Anyone, really
Ourselves, even
The real question is:
Who built this house?
We don’t seek to punish you
But merely to show everyone
That you aren’t so great
So we can then proceed
With tearing the house down
Our sex need not be shut up
Who defined it as it has been?
I have gotten too particular
I do not wish for this to be a novel
Oh blah blah blah
I am back again
I have come back down from the mushrooms
It will continue on for some time now
Along the plateau
But the come up has come
And gone
July 02, 2021 at 03:46PM
Can’t possibly be
An accident
This piece of yarn
On the rug
Or any of
The rest of it
It’s all too
Itself
Each thing
Is
Very much
Itself
But she almost
Has me convinced
That it’s all, really,
The same
July 02, 2021 at 03:31PM
Why is it
The mushrooms
That bring it out of me
Where
Does my exuberance
For life hide
On the days when
Just the thought
Of getting out of bed
Already brings
Other thoughts
Of what I will do
Once I am out
And for some reason
None of it
Seems worth the effort
July 02, 2021 at 03:23PM
How could the industry
Have possibly picked
Diamonds
Over the blue-yellow
Holographic beauty
That is labradorite
What does it say
About our standards for beauty
That we picked
The cleanest, clearest
Rock
As the one of value
July 02, 2021 at 03:10PM
In most of what
Has been written
And deemed worthy
To have been read
By others before me
I can see how firmly
They must have pressed
Their pens into the paper
By the boldness of the font
Even though it is printed
So clear
Their editing
And obsessing over
The punctuation
What is it like
To sit in a room with someone
And watch them be
Who they truly are
Write, like that
I wish they would have
Like they would talk
If they were right here
On the couch with me
So that I could meet them
Instead
Of this castrated form
Into which
They crammed themselves
July 02, 2021 at 02:59PM
Pins and needles
Press into
The palm
Hanging at the end
Of this here
Arm, shoulder
Wooden couch railing
Pressed up and under
My armpit
I let it hang
To feel the pins
And needles
July 02, 2021 at 02:53PM
To tear myself down
From these heights
Up to which
I have built
Thinking to myself
All the while
Sweating, toiling
That I was really
Doing the right thing
Building myself up
To achieve something great
Only to meet
A fat, smiling Buddha
Appearing to me
As a curvy, curly-haired beaut
Who said to me
In her sweet, seductress way
That I had to now
Tear it all down
Brick by brick
I was wrong all along
Or rather
The ones whom I listened to
Were wrong
But it didn’t matter
Either way
I had to tear it all down
July 02, 2021 at 02:48PM
Like all the money
I made
In my short tour
Of the working world
Was for naught
But to buy
As many mushrooms
As our dear grower
Could grow,
Take them,
Trip my balls off,
And write poetry
July 02, 2021 at 02:37PM
More
I can always
Do more
Even
When my mind
Says to stop
I can still go
Until
The muscles tear
If not
For my body
Maintaining itself
For what?
For oatmeal
And cribbage
In a wheelchair
Without the strength
To tear myself
Apart
Even if
I wanted to
So why not tear
Starting with my pectorals
While I still can
July 02, 2021 at 02:34PM
She is my veil
Shrouding me
And my insanity
From the outer world
Which would not know
Why I lie
On the hardwood floor
With the chair legs
Gripped firmly
In both my hands
Shouting,
“Too narrow!
Too narrow!”
Because it is
Of course
Too narrow
But they
Would not know that
And neither does she
But still
She protects me
Like a young fledgling
In her nest
July 02, 2021 at 02:31PM
Unlike her feminine way
Of seeing the world
Soft
And all the same
I plunge
With my mind
The spear
That they put
Into my hand
And sharpened
For reasons
Other than this
Though I broke
From that race
And now fling
My spear
At thought
After thought
Somewhere off
In the neverland
Of my mind
That they built up
So strong
To be for them
It has wrested
Itself free
Not even for me
Does it fling its spear
I know not now
For what I fling
Maybe I will crawl back
To her soft
And feminine ways
July 02, 2021 at 02:26PM
Just to be
Is quite a feat
Which wins
No awards
For we all
Are born into it
But collectively
We might all win
The award together
And this is it
That award
If I might be so arrogant
To don it on us
Myself
Here it is
July 02, 2021 at 02:24PM
It is intensified, on mushrooms, what is normal. Why cannot, when I am sober, chase after, with such reckless abandon, whatever crosses the windowpane, of my consciousness.
I feel high and get too high and then get sad when I fear that the high will not continue. It is intensified, this going up and then fearing the come back down, on mushrooms. But it is no different than it is normally. Like if you took a sine wave graph and squeezed it’s x-axis into a smaller space so that the amplitude of the graph seemed much higher and much lower. It’s the same function, but the perspective has changed.
It can’t all be written. There isn’t any one art form that can capture it all. Modern movies come the closest, I think. They have something for all the senses. You see the movie, hear the movie. You don’t smell, taste, or feel it, though.
What art form communicates what is beyond just the senses?
That is the tragedy, there, that an artist must cram it into her form and the audience must suck it out, as if through a long and narrow straw. The sucking process is not instant. It takes the time of listening to a song or reading a poem. You have to let it get into you through your senses somehow.
Is that the most we can give to each other? What can fit through the long and narrow straw. And only for those with time and energy to do the sucking.
There is a rate at which the thoughts come. The rate is very high during the come up. It is so high that I cannot write them down. One will come, I will start to write it, and then another will come right away. During a period of the plateau, the thoughts come at just the right rate, so that I am just about finishing with the one by the time another comes. When I am sober, and not tripping, the thoughts come so slow—one worth writing, maybe, only once or twice per day.
Peeing in the dark
I stared at
A stack of toilet paper
The dark, inner circle
Around which
The white paper was rolled
Expanded
And shrunk
Expanded
And shrunk
Like it had a slow
And epic
Heartbeat
I finished peeing
And went to look
At the plants
To see
If their hearts
Were also beating
July 02, 2021 at 12:58PM
It may seem lazy, but it’s hard work keeping the world from crashing in on all sides, like being inside a box deep underwater. None of the sides of the box are sealed together and they all have handles, so you’ve got your two hands holding two sides and your two feet looped underneath the handles of two of the other sides, but there are still two sides left. So you’ve got to clench onto one of the two remaining handles with your teeth and still the handle on the sixth side is left free, so you’re always playing this alternating game switching one of your hands or your feet or your teeth to hold onto the unattended side, keeping the sides sealed together so no water gets in.
Oh, and the walls are clear, so everyone else is swimming around like they think they’re supposed to and they can see you inside your box and they say among themselves, “Why is he in there just sitting and not out here swimming like he’s supposed to?” They don’t see your effort just to keep the box together. They only see that you are not like them and not doing what you’re supposed to be doing.
The waters of this modern world are filled up to the brim. The waves are crashing and the riptides are strong, so it’s a real effort just to tread water.
I opened one of the windows
In the second-story bedroom
Of the Baker Street apartment
Locked eyes with a painter
Standing on the sidewalk
With his arms crossed
Smug and unflinching
His stance set wide
White shirt with paint flecks
Tucked in
To his blue jeans
Looking up at me
Like the referee
Of all household things
I was suddenly unsure of how
To properly
Open a window
Pushed out the pane
A little too far
And the ref blew his whistle
Brought it back in
The hinges squeaked
And he shook his head
Went to get some grease
Pushed it out somewhere in the middle
And stepped back
The painter opened his palm,
Flicked out his fingers, frowned,
Bobbed his head
As if to say, “Good enough”
Then walked across the street
To get into his white van
And drove off
With the ladder on top
July 01, 2021 at 09:39AM
A physical therapy article
Say it’s only in rare cases
That back pain turns out
To be a tumor
The investigator writes me,
“I don’t know what will be decided,
But your cooperation and honesty
Will certainly be in my report”
My fears of being stuck in a cell
With another inmate, larger
And able to overpower me
Might subside, if only for today
But I am still stuck in this cycle of thought
Which subjects my well-being
To the ups and downs of the material world
Which I am passing through
Any later than this very moment
Is already further into the future
Than the spiritual book I’m reading
Would recommend me thinking
I am caught in between
Walking out into the Presidio
And lying down next to a tree
For the next rain to wash me away
And continuing this mad existence
That is all I’ve ever known
July 01, 2021 at 09:15AM
I play pretend
I have a friend
Who has told me her troubles
I imagine
We are at the park
And I ask
How her troubles have been
She catches me up to speed
While we watch
Our kids swing
July 01, 2021 at 03:49AM
When you are hungry and tired
You cannot satisfy both
At the same time
Unless you know how
To eat while sleeping
Or sleep while eating
I have tried both:
Once, arriving home after a day
Of foodless travel
I put some chili in a pan
Turned on the stove
And sat down at the bistro table
To rest
While it heated
But I fell asleep
With my head on my arm
And when I woke
There was a burning smell
Another time,
After a long day of work
When I had to skip lunch
I tried to take a nap before dinner
But only tossed and turned
On the couch
With my stomach grumbling
So I had to get up
And play the dangerous game
Of not falling asleep
With the stove on
July 01, 2021 at 03:27AM
To the defender
In front of me:
I have no left
It might as well be a club
Or a phantom foot
One, two, maybe
Three times
I’ll have my glory
Dribbling past you
With my right
But you’ll learn
Like they all do
And then I’ll have to find
A new game
With new defenders
Who don’t know me
June 30, 2021 at 09:05PM
Where can I stay
If I don’t go
In what state
Other than death
Can I suspend myself
While still living
If I could persist
Without eating, sleeping
I would find just one
True true
And chip away
The excesses of myself
To become
A statue of the truth
I am not fit for this life
I am a weak body
A limited mind
A sinful soul
Where can I go
If I don’t stay
June 30, 2021 at 07:53PM
The price of a human life
Has gone up, Brother
There is no more time
In the bank
And survival is cheap
I have made enough
In one year
To live for ten
So what keeps me
From taking the first train
Out of the city?
Money used to buy
All that we ever wanted
Now it just buys
More of the same
But you can’t buy time
June 30, 2021 at 04:20PM
Normally, I count in my head when I hold a plank. “One, two, three …” I’ve been counting in couplets recently, so it’s more like, “One-two, three-four …” I count the first half on the exhale so it ends up being longer than the second half. “Oooooone-two, threeeeee-four …” I wear a watch to double check myself. I’m rarely right on. Usually, I’m counting too slow at the beginning of my workout or too fast at the end when I’m tired.
Counting may do more harm than good for my persistence. I end up paying attention to the count instead of my form. I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that my energy wanes right at the end of the count.
I have to get to the point because my soccer match is about to start and they need help moving the goals. Counting is western, capitalistic. I think it would be better if I achieve the same one-pointed focus in my exercise as I do in my meditation. I focus on one thing and that is holding the form. I focus like this until something else, like pain, enters my consciousness with such vigor that my focus is broken by force.
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
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
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
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
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
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
You chomp
With confidence
Until
There’s a rock
In your food
And then
You chew
A little more
Softly
June 29, 2021 at 12:41PM
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
I am hungry
So I
Get some cheese
Out of the fridge
Slice
And eat it
With crackers
June 24, 2021 at 09:51AM
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
Doing exercises
With my hands
On the ground
I saw an ant
Crawling
Between my fingers
How many
Had I squashed
Already?
June 21, 2021 at 07:42PM
Water
Is clear
So the bottom
Of the mug
Can still
Be seen
Through
The water
With which
It’s filled
June 13, 2021 at 12:10PM
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
“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
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
The wooden deck planks
Took fire
From the rain
And bled
Spreading
Wet darkness
From their bullet holes
June 10, 2021 at 01:48PM
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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. 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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.”
The fajitas I ate
In Cabo
Haven’t even
Fully digested
As I order a drink
At a bar
In San Francisco
June 02, 2021 at 07:04PM
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
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
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
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
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
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
San Francisco is a lot
For a writer
Trying to get down
The small stuff
You see
A piece break off
From the whole
When you’re
In the right place
And time
To see the break
The wheel
Of a mail truck
Pulls up and over
A curb
And you think
To write it
But then
Another car honks
And you’re distracted
Which would be fine
You could return
To the wheel
And the curb
If not
For the other sounds
And sights
That come one
After another
One moment can’t
Hold up against
All the others
Attacking
The outside walls
Which define it
When they
Eventually crumble
And all the other
Surrounding moments
Invade
And mix
The moments
Breed
And assimilate
So you can’t remember
What the moment
Was before
And it changes
All the time
May 31, 2021 at 01:51PM
The bubbles from
The lime seed
At the bottom of the bottle
Ascend
To the surface
In a pillar
Of molecules destined
For kin air
Escaping
From an ocean
Of amber gold
Intoxication
I promised myself
Again this morning
That I would not
Drink today
Now it’s early afternoon
And this
Is my second
May 31, 2021 at 12:42PM
I stood on the balcony
With my new friend Peter
Who was about twice my age
We had just gotten back from dinner
And were starting our evening drinking
He started to talk about how
He was old
And I was young and full of energy
I asked him
What he meant by energy
And he pointed out at all the lights,
Boats, roofs, roads, water
And asked me
What do you see out there?
I said I saw lights,
Boats, roofs, roads, water
He waited patiently
Like a teacher
For the right answer
He said there are protons and electrons
It’s all energy
And that was his point
Which I did not completely understand
But then again, I did, somewhat
May 31, 2021 at 11:32AM
A rock hit the windshield
On our drive
To Todos Santos
We could not have
Avoided it
Just one of the risks
Of taking the car
Out of the garage
May 31, 2021 at 11:25AM
How far can I
As the writer
Get away from
The subject
Of my writing
If I must sense
See, hear, smell
Something first
In order to write it
Where can I
Cram myself away
So that
The subject
Can be what it is
Independent of me
Sensing it
May 31, 2021 at 11:21AM
I struggle to explain
With words
What I am experiencing
So I can only explain
With words
The struggle itself
May 31, 2021 at 11:07AM
I broke the blender this morning
Burned up the rubber piece in the bottom
Blending
A smoothie that was too big
On the high setting
I should have started low
Until it was mixed some
And then turned it up higher
So it wasn’t so hard on that poor
Piece of rubber
In between an engine that had
All the strength
And a blade that had
All the ambition
To blend more than the machine
Ever had before
But the rubber wasn’t ready
And the engine and the blade
Did not consider the rubber
In their plans
May 31, 2021 at 11:09AM
Is it even
Noon yet
Our brunch
Started
At eleven
And we must have
Spent more than
An hour there
So it must be
After
Noon
Now
May 30, 2021 at 12:24PM
I feel like
A floating speck of dust
In a very big world
Walking back to the resort
After
A very boozy brunch
After the third
Bottle of champagne
We had to get a fourth
Because it was two-for-one
I took off my shirt
To avoid
Sweating through it
The shirt
Hanging on my shoulder
And all the rest of it
Including
The dust speck
I am
Blows in the wind
May 30, 2021 at 12:20PM
I spend
And spend
And eat
And consume
And earn
And then spend
And eat
More
And more
And earn
Again
Until
I’ll eventually
Lose either
My appetite
Or my ability
To earn
And then die
Or else
Get taken care of
By another
Earner
May 30, 2021 at 11:35AM
The waves
Creep up along
The sandy beach
And then retreat
Forward
And back
Forward
And back
Like a dog
Nipping at the heels
Of the city
Waiting
For the collective power
Of their element
To overwhelm
All at once
In the rush
Of a hurricane
May 29, 2021 at 10:20PM
We stood on the rooftop
With our hands on the
Railing
Looking out at the ocean
And the lights from the few
Larger yachts
That stayed out in the water
Overnight
The other boats
Went into the marina
To dock
Most of them
Before sundown
The ocean
Dark
And mostly without any
Perceptible details
To our eyes
Numbed
By all the lights
Of the city
In the half of the view
On our side
Of the shore
May 29, 2021 at 10:15PM
Dancing
I go back and forth
Between
Being aware of myself
And forgetting
That the experiences
Feeding into my senses
Are predicated
On the attachment
Of my sensory organs
To my body
With which
I identify
May 29, 2021 at 08:30PM
In the very nice
Bathroom
At this place
The hand towels
Are linen
Not paper
And they still get thrown away
In a waste basket
Lined
With a plastic bag
I hope
They wash them
And don’t just
Throw them away
May 29, 2021 at 07:25PM
I am less worried now
About getting back
Across the border
If my test comes back positive
I’ll just stay
In Cabo for a while
It’s all alright
It’s all
It’s all
It is all
What is it
And I am here
And part of it
Anything past that
Is unnecessary
Complication
May 29, 2021 at 07:24PM
At dinner
Some of our group
Wanted to order
More drinks
But the artists
Among us
On budgets
Stumbled
Over our words
To say
We’d rather wait
And drink the cheap alcohol
From the grocery store
Back at the room
May 29, 2021 at 06:54PM
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
Right here
I breathe in deeply
To get as much
As I can
May 29, 2021 at 06:47PM
I can close my eyes
And escape
From where
My sight says
I am
Off into
My head
It seems
Black
As far as my eyes
Are concerned
My other senses
Still tether me
To what I can hear
And feel
I try to escape
Plugging my ears
And lying down
On soft cushions
But I still remain
Myself
Loosely
May 29, 2021 at 05:48PM
Sitting in a chair
I started to drum
On the armrests
And really
Got into it
Tapping
A rapid
Multi-fingered beat
On the one arm
And a deeper
Bass beat
With my whole palm
On the other
Bobbing my head
Bouncing my feet
May 29, 2021 at 04:07PM
On the beach
He lies
With the brim
Of his ball cap
Pulled down
Over his eyes
Seeming
To be asleep
But his hand plays
Intelligently
With sand
Flowing through his fingers
And into mounds
By his side
May 29, 2021 at 03:40PM
I point, cock,
And shoot
My finger gun
At boats
Out on the water
From my
Sand castle base
On the beach
Making war
In peace time
May 29, 2021 at 03:21PM
Treading water
With my ears above the surface
I heard
The squeals of children
The music from the beach bars
The waves crashing
The vendors selling
Underwater
I heard
What I try to remember
How to describe
Back on the beach
It was
Not silent
A soft
Ahhhhhhhh
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
And hear
And be there
Underwater and at peace
May 29, 2021 at 02:08PM
I held her
In my arms
On the beach
It seemed
To both of us
Like the thing to do
At the time
To maximize
Our pleasure
Despite her being
My friend’s
And the other
Usual reasons
For abstaining
From what we really want
May 29, 2021 at 02:03PM
I got up off my cushions
And ran
One bounding step
After another
To set
As few feet
As possible
Onto the hot sand
And reached the water
Quickly
Took two more bounds
In the shallow water
And then
Took off and soared
As best
As my young body could
My pointed hands
Were first
Into the water
And then all of me
Was in
And under
Suspended
And supported
On all sides
For as long as I
Could hold my breath
May 29, 2021 at 01:58PM
The fan spins
So fast
Shaking
Its center piece
Whirring
Whispering
To me in bed
Its blades
Blur
Into a circle
That looks
Like it’s painted
With one
Very light
Circular
Brush stroke
If you spin
Your eyes
Around
With it
You can catch
A glimpse
Of a single blade
Static
For a moment
In the blur
A blade flashes
To cry
To beg
For escape
From the race
That goes too fast
In circles
Never ending
Going nowhere
May 29, 2021 at 09:09AM
Your part of the table
Succumbs to the silence
You rack your brain
For something to say
To the person across from you
Or next to you
Or anyone
Or else sit
In the silence
Staring off
At something else
Caught between
Still thinking of something to say
And seeing something interesting
Or thinking your own thoughts
And not really caring
About the silence
May 28, 2021 at 09:49PM
When you talk to someone
And listen for a while
And get restless at some point
Wondering when the story 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
And ask them questions
Really wanting to know
What it was like
At the twists and their turns
Like watching a movie
But even better
To meet the character in real life
And ask them questions
With no outtakes
It is their eyes
That always get me
When I am as close as I can get
To living their life
And leaving my own
Their eyes
Are the last door into them
That I look into
And then fall
Completely in
May 28, 2021 at 09:35PM
Talking to the restaurant owner
From Germany
Who made his way over to the U.S.
At some point
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 where Marcos told himself
He would open his own restaurant
Someday
It started as a bakery
And then expanded to
A dinner menu
I got the chicken
With brussel sprouts and pumpkin purée
The chicken was perfect
But the brussel 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
And I told him I believed in him
And thought his restaurant would be big
And then we weren’t strangers anymore
And so I told him
The brussel sprouts were undercooked
And he shook my hand
And said he would tell the chef
May 28, 2021 at 09:31PM
We sat and listened
To the wives
Talk about their preference
For flying first class
On certain airlines
And not others
As the fountain
Of their private pool
Splashed in the water
We nodded
And acted like
We lived lives
Similar enough
To understand what they meant
About spending
Thousands
On plane tickets
May 28, 2021 at 05:15PM
Arsenio made us our
Margaritas
With tamarind and jalapeño
And brought them
To the frontside
Of the infinity pool
Where we had our chins
Resting in our forearms
Talking about how
It’s easy to be
In the present moment
When nothing else seems
Like it could be any better
Arsenio
Told us about how
He went to the states
When he was fourteen
To Santa María
His uncle
Who was a coyote
Took him walking
Through the desert
From ensanada
Across the border
There was a fence
But there was a hole dug
Underneath the fence
Like little animals
Dig
He said
When he couldn’t translate
What he meant
By the hole under the fence
May 28, 2021 at 02:47PM
A desert eagle landed
On the roof across from our balcony
And James explained
How the falconer
Brought the eagle everyday
To chase the smaller birds
Away from the resort
We watched
The majestic eagle
Pick with its beak
At its plumage
As one small bird
And then another
And another
Landed
On the roof next to it
Not doing
Very good at its job
The eagle must be
Like a crooked officer
In cahoots
With the small bird mafia
May 28, 2021 at 02:46PM
I lean my head back
Against the headrest
In the backseat
Closer my eyes
And let the air coming through
The open window
Blow my hair
There is something about
Driving on the highway at night
With music playing
We stay between the white lines
And behind
The red taillights
The black of the night
Blankets
Everything other
Than the road we speed along
May 27, 2021 at 09:30PM
The two tamales
The chicken in the salsa verde
And the beef
In a sauce I could not translate
On the plastic plate
From the street vendor
In the square
Of San Jose
Was the cheapest meal I had
Cheaper
Than the tourist traps
Near the beach
I sat on the fountain
And picked with my plastic fork
Through the sauce
To find the meat
May 27, 2021 at 09:05PM
A white older man
Gray stubble on his face
Wearing a cowboy hat
And an oversized
Buttoned-up shirt
And oversized khaki pants
Slouched
In a straight-backed wooden chair
His long skeleton fingers point
And he says something
To explain
What he’s pointing at
But
It’s indiscernible
Maybe because of
The empty
Bottle of wine
Next to him on the table
But for a guy of his size
He would have probably needed
More than one bottle
To get to this point
By his demeanor
I would guess
He is either
The proprietor
Of the gallery
Or the artist who made
All the pieces
Or the man
In charge of this moment
In some way
Or another
As we all watch
And wait for him
To take the lead
May 27, 2021 at 08:20PM
I watch for
What
I can write here
Whether
This is the way
Or
It should come to me
And surprise me
Like
I wasn’t
Waiting for it
May 27, 2021 at 08:14PM
It’s amazing
How much better
I feel
From one
Margarita
Made with mezcal
After passing
On the first two rounds
Of drinks
That my friends ordered
“Amazing”
Is not the best word
I know
But if you’ve ever drank before
You know
What I mean
Which is the point
Anyway
Right?
May 27, 2021 at 08:08PM
I woke up confused
By
Not feeling worse
Than I should have
And confused also
About
What to do
With myself
Other
Than whatever
Would make me feel better
But because
I did not know
Whether
I was
Sick to my stomach
Tired
Or just fine enough
To go down
For a swim
Which is what I eventually did
And so started
A day full
Of what wasn’t planned
But just happened
One thing
After another
And so passed
Another day
Of living
As pain-free
As possible
May 27, 2021 at 07:55PM
We sat at the table
Waiting on our drinks
Watching
The flamenco dancer on stage
Stomping her feet
Violently
And rapidly
The guitarist invited us to clap along
But there was
No hope of that
We could not even applaud
At the right times
The dancer
Would stop
And then we would applaud
And she would stamp right on through
Like a mother
Scolding her children
She snapped her head
As flamenco dancers do
And looked at my friend and smiled
Our drinks
Arrived
Eventually
May 27, 2021 at 07:40PM
The young musicians
Played on a rug
Laid on the tile
In San Jose
For a crowd of mostly tourists
And a few locals
The pianist
Was better than the other three
Combined
He played the electric keyboard
And varied the sound
All over the place
Hunching his shoulders over the keys
And then leaning back
In the old, tattered office chair on wheels
That he was sitting in
His fingers jumped
From key
To key
Like grasshoppers
Making sounds of pressed
And held
Passion
Taking off
And landing
I don’t know much
About music
But I can feel
When someone else is feeling it
And I could feel the pianist
Feeling himself
And everyone else there
Feeling him
May 27, 2021 at 06:07PM
“This has so much ego in it. It’s so good,” she says about the song playing. She says things, not knowing what she’s saying and how good it is, confirming the theory I have about the words people say in conversation in the moment being way better than the words remembered and written after the fact. She says this listening to the music and feeling it. The way she says it in this moment is different. It is like music. The tone makes it. Her facial expression, the environment around her, and, of course, the music itself—it all contributes. Film would get closer with its combination of audio and video. The art that we are all chasing from different angles is the present moment. When we cut it off from its original source, we only take a piece with us—the words, the sounds, the appearance. But the whole thing is here and only once. The art is life itself as it’s lived. What makes us want to divorce it from it’s natural birthplace, to pull the flower up from it’s soil. Because we want to show the beauty to others? Because we want to keep it for ourselves.
I wonder when
I should stop the white
And start the green
In order
To have some hope
Of sleeping
Tonight
May 27, 2021 at 01:48AM
James and the girl
He was trying to get with
As well as
The other nice guy
Who I didn’t think was nice
When I first met him
And his girl
Listen to music in the room
The girls dance
While the guys pretend at it
And mostly just watch
The girls
Up later
Than they would be
If they were not
Playing at
The oldest game
May 27, 2021 at 01:44AM
I leaned back
With both hands holding the iron rail
And my bare feet
On the tile
Swinging from side to side
Looking up
Through the thatched roof
At the stars
And the full moon
Pulling the waves
In
And out
In
And out
Down there
Making dry noise
May 27, 2021 at 01:40AM
The leaves on the palm trees
Dance in the wind
Whether I
Am here
On the balcony
To watch them
Or not
They sway to the music
Of the wind
And everything else that either
Moves
Or stays still
They dance
Like a beautiful girl
On the dance floor
Of the night
No matter who watches
May 27, 2021 at 01:35AM
I was lying out by the pool not knowing what to do with myself. I was at constant risk of overshooting relaxation and falling into boredom but such was the peril of taking a vacation when I was already unemployed.
The waiters in their white coats walked by in front of the beach chairs holding silver trays that glinted in the sun. The day was hot as you would expect of midday in July on the top of the Baja peninsula. But it was enough to avoid sunburn sitting under the umbrella. I had learned to avoid sunburn on the first couple days of a vacation. For the last days, it doesn’t matter as much, especially if you are headed back to a place with less sun. It is even good to have the sunburn when you get back, to prove to yourself that you really went and had a vacation and were changed by it.
I could hear the spinning, grinding sound coming from the machine at the bar that made drinks with crushed ice. I looked over and there was one younger man in a white t-shirt at the bar. I thought of having a drink but then thought I better not. We would drink enough later in the night, I thought.
She left
Almost as quickly
As she came
Not more
Than five minutes
Had we been on the balcony
And not more than ten
Had it been
Since we stepped out of the bus
That brought us
From the airport
To the resort
And here came this angel
To welcome us
Climbing
Up onto the thatched roof of the veranda
And jumping the fence
To join us on the balcony
But maybe
Her beauty
Is more fit for prose
Than poetry
So I’ll leave this one be
May 25, 2021 at 03:27PM
We got to Cabo and went out onto the balcony and the first thing that happened was a girl named Sarah from the condo below us climbed the pillar of the overhang to come up to our balcony and say hello.
She said, “I think the reason our generation has so much mental illness is because we are so far from where we’re supposed to be, biologically, like we’re supposed to be monkeys crawling around in the forest.”
This was after some conversation but not the amount usually required to get to such depth.
How can I describe her? Completely unabashed. Young and full of life. Beautiful. Unapologetically herself. Talkative.
My two friends continue to talk to her while I write. Greg asks what her and her friends are doing tonight. They don’t have any plans. Greg says the rooftop club that we can see from the balcony is a good one.
She says, “Want to go now?” It’s 3:45 in the afternoon. She has been doing coke for the past day and a half. Greg still has work to do on his computer. I would go with her, but I don’t tell her this. I don’t say anything. I just stay quiet and keep writing about this angel, friend, someone, I don’t know; but she is certainly more interesting and exciting than any of the last hundred or so people I’ve met.
She leaned back with one leg thrown over the other, wearing shorts that barely covered anything. Her eyelids fluttered over her eyes as she took unconscious drinks of the beer Greg gave her.
She talked about everything and I sat there and typed on my phone about her just hoping she would never stop or, even if she did stop talking, that she would at least not leave and take with her all the life that she so easily brought and could so easily take away.
I wonder if she is aware of the power she wields, to bring the whole universe to bear in a pair of short shorts that contain barely anything, let alone all the stars that were ever in the sky for as many nights as a man ever lived. One moment is not enough to contain her.
The plane bumps
We are safe
I guess
Based on how calm
Everyone is
Sitting
In their seats
Carrying on
With their conversations
As if
Some very clever science
Which hitherto
Has failed
Very few times
Were not the only
Thin
Line
Between our happy cabin
Full of vacationers
And the mountains
Below
May 25, 2021 at 11:50AM
The guy with sunglasses on his head
Leaned back in his chair
To tell the flight attendant
Something nice
I don’t know what
Exactly
But I know it was nice
Because she laughed and said, “Oh, thank you”
And he smiled and nodded his head
I wonder
How happy he is
When he is not
On vacation
At his day job
At the office
With a pile of paperwork
Maybe
He really is
A happy guy
All the time
May 25, 2021 at 11:43AM
We didn’t even use to
Have plumbing
In buildings
On the ground
And now
We have bathrooms
In planes
That flush!
And the water
From the sink
Is hot!
Originally written: May 25, 2021 at 11:37AM
Besides being blue
And besides being wet
And besides being
Anything else
Which it might appear to be
To another
Under different circumstances
One who may even
Speak a different language
Or know more English words
Than I
But even me
Being as I am
If I were
In any other time or place
Than the 25th of May
Up in the sky seated in this plane
I would describe
It differently
Its aspects
Are innumerable
If I look
Long enough
And especially
If I take time and go away from it
And then come back to it
Later on
It will have changed
As all things are
Changing
Not necessarily themselves
I’m sure
They stay the same
For the most part
But we
Yes, we
Are changing
All the time
And so too
Therefore
Does everything around us
Originally written: May 25, 2021 at 11:25AM
While cutting a green pepper
On a wooden cutting board
I saw a little black speck
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
And brought it
Closer to my eyes
So that I could see
That it had legs
And was 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 it
Inside of the green pepper
Until it realized
It would be
A coffin
Albeit, a big coffin
One fit for
An Egyptian king
Like a pyramid
So maybe not so bad
All in all
For this little dead bug
Originally written: May 24, 2021 at 05:01PM
I will try to write like Bukowski I
suppose
based just on what I know about him
from
the two of his poetry books
that I’ve read
holding one in front of my face now
looking back and forth
between this
and examples of his work
which I am trying to copy
with the uncapitalized first letter
to begin each line
and the seemingly random line breaks
that somehow work
I don’t think I
can make it all the way as a writer
copying like this
but my editor said that I should try
something different
with my form
other than just my same-sized lines
one after another
my poems run together
after a while
she said
is this any better?
I’ll ask her
Originally written: May 23, 2021 at 06:16PM
I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories. I exercise to lose calories. I eat to gain calories.
I put my hands
On my knees
Bend over
And lean my head
To the side
To stick my nose
Out the window
And breathe
The fresh air
Originally written: May 17, 2021 at 05:22PM
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
Originally written: May 17, 2021 at 04:26PM
Well, would that be
The worst thing
You can imagine
Happening?
Or, could there be
Something else
Even worse
Still?
At what point
Would you give up
And say
I’ve had enough
Originally written: May 15, 2021 at 05:50PM
It better be
Bags of beans
You’ve brought
And dropped
On my floor;
I have little use
For much else
Originally written: May 15, 2021 at 05:40PM
I really cared
For a while there
As I thought
This all might
Really matter
Somehow
Or that it all
Might go on
Unchanged
And what I do
Will be forever
But I’ve remembered
That it all changes
Nothing matters
It all passes
I got caught up
For a while there
Thinking that
This all
Might matter
Somehow
But now
I remember
That it doesn’t
So I can
Forgive myself
For my mistakes
Originally written: May 15, 2021 at 01:42PM
I wish for what
Would require me
To read the dictionary
Cover to cover
In order to obtain
To get out of bed
And lift heavy things
And eat
And then lift more
And eat more
And then get back in bed
On a strict schedule
To learn
Whatever others
Have done before me
From various
Secondary sources
And then rinse
Out their individuality
And repeat
With my own
Why can not
Wishing alone
Be enough
To muster the matter
If I were to lie here
Wishing hard
And sincerely
Originally written: May 15, 2021 at 11:47AM
I do not like to measure exactly. Who is doing the cooking then? If I follow the recipe exactly, scraping the back of a knife along the top of the measuring cup. If I do not taste the ingredients for myself. What kind of cook am I if I only do what I am told? Who are you anonymous author of the recipe? When have I followed your orders before without knowing it? Not today! You say, a half cup of milk. Bah! I will put in three-quarters of a cup. Because I like it creamy! And even if I didn’t, I would do it just to spite you.
What is is what is. There, I have said it. I do not want to say anything else. I have said what I am sure of and to say anything else would be like stepping down from a rock when there is quicksand all around me. But what about this? You might ask of me, or I might ask of myself. I sigh. I don’t want to answer. I don’t want to risk it. But you have a point. How can we do anything in this modern world without asking and answering for ourselves those other questions? It reminds me of something I once read, which was written on one of the desks at the library where I studied during college, “A ship is safe in the harbor, but that is not what ships are for.” I am safe standing on my rock, but there is so much more to life than just standing on a rock.
We didn’t really have it that hard is the truth. Some times were hard, sure. But some people have it way harder. Where’s their recognition? If you start almost at the top and then make the small leap at the top, how far did you really go? I have a hunch that the art we know about isn’t the best there ever was. The best there ever was probably wasn’t even translated into the common arts forms that we have learned to call “art.” It was probably something like a bum who whistled a tune in the middle of the night, lying all alone on his cardboard with nobody there to hear. But maybe even that is too cheap and cliché. Maybe it was just a single mom making enough at her night shift to put breakfast on the table for her son the next morning. Still, too obvious and trite. My view is still too narrow. Too human. Too here and now. We make art that we understand. Which makes sense, I suppose. I don’t know. Lying here in bed getting sober. My throat still burns from the cigar. It’s dark out and a car drives by. 2:45 a.m. I slept all day today, before we went over to John’s and had dinner and started drinking. We talked and we talked, but I don’t think we really said it. Maybe someone has already said it to me before and I just couldn’t quite understand. Even if someone said it to me once, I’d want them to say it again. See, I’m selfish like that. I have it too easy. I’m a glutton for more of all the goodness I’ve already gotten. In some rare moments, when I can keep from over complicating it, I can see straight through to the beating heart of the cosmos. I saw it in the white ceiling when I woke up from my nap earlier today. I thought to myself, damn, just the fact that I can see that white ceiling, just that is more than I can truly appreciate, when I muster all the attention I can give it. And I don’t know why, but that’s when I think of dying. I think, I will die and I won’t be able to look at a white ceiling like this again, and I want to cry. Sometimes I do cry. Most of the time I can only cry when I think about other people dying. Sometimes I get more sad than other times. Sometimes I’m not sad at all. I’m just very indifferent and I don’t really care what happens. Anyway, I think I’ll go to sleep now.
I see something
Which I think
Is one thing
But then
It turns out to be
Something else
I wanted to write
What I thought
It was before
Before it became
What it
Really is
As I realize
It doesn’t really
Make a difference
It’s all
Make-believe
Anyway
Originally written: May 05, 2021 at 06:19PM
I put on the glasses
That I’m supposed to wear
All the time
And see
For what seems
Like the first time
All the finer details
Like leaves
On the trees
Originally written: May 02, 2021 at 11:27AM
I am up now
I am assuredly
Up
And away
Chasing after
Even my faintest
Fancies
Which
When down
I would not
Walking
Away from the desk
Just to breathe
And let out
Some of this energy
I can’t
Contain it all
Breathing
I send it back out
Smiling
Happy to have it
And happy also
To let it go
Originally written: May 01, 2021 at 10:21AM
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
Refusing to obey
Its present parent
Originally written: May 01, 2021 at 10:06AM
I wonder about the limits of being yourself. They say you have to play by the rules before you can break them. But they also say that just being yourself is the key to success. How much of myself is really me? Not much, I think. Unless, of course, all that we mean by “being yourself” is that you just stood there and let it all happen to you. Well, then everyone would be themselves by default. There’s no way to escape it. From whence does one’s self surge up? I am vaguely remembering Sartre’s essay on existentialism. How can the seed of yourself fall on anything but fertile soil? But then who put the soil down and who pulled you out of their seed bag and dropped you there? And these questions go on ad infinitum. So there is really only one true individual, and they are either the chicken or the egg. But we’re not talking about just any old chicken here. We’re talking about the Chicken with a capital ‘C.’ Or the egg with all the Alpha and Omega-3s you could ever ask for.
But I’m losing my head. Back to being yourself. Let’s depart from the true philosophy of the matter just for a moment and talk in practical terms. I think we can agree there are some actions that can be taken or decisions that can be made by an individual which seem to be willed or otherwise brought about by their own individual selves. In other words, we would not say of said actions or decisions that they were a result of the individual just following the rules or doing what everyone else is doing. In some way or another, an individual is capable of really doing something on their own. Now, I don’t think this claim really holds weight philosophically, especially for determinists, but let’s just hold it as an assumption for now.
Maybe it is an aesthetic argument. Because what I really want to convey is the sense of beauty that I get when I see someone who appears to be beating their own path. And I don’t think we get very many of these. Because the default is to walk the trail already traveled. Before you can even think for yourself, you’re already on that trail. And, if we’re subscribing to determinism, then the inclination to step off the trail might also be determined, which is why this is not an ethical argument. It is not good or bad to be on the trodden trail. But, oh, the aesthetics of the young girl in the dress running off into the tall grass and away from everyone else—oh, I want to chase that girl! I want to finally catch her in a glade and ask her all the questions that the travelers on the trodden trail could not answer for me. Why did you run? Where are you going? What have you found so far? Will you go back? Why? Or why not?
But how beautiful will her answers be? And herein lies the heart of the matter. Because it is beautiful to watch her run away—this much, I can understand. But how alien will she become? And how quickly? See, this is what I mean by the limits of being yourself. Because on the trodden trail, we can all understand each other. We have had relatively similar experiences, we speak the same language, we know the same people—we hold things in common; most importantly, in this context, our methods of communication. This is important for the aesthetic argument because how can something be beautiful if I cannot understand it? Now, don’t rebut too fast. I am not talking about complete understanding. A little bit of the unknown can be tantalizing. But this is different. I am talking here about not even a beginning of understanding. Something so alien that you can do nothing but stand there and gawk. Maybe there is some awe in the gawking. But if there is awe, then there must be some starting foothold into which your understanding has stepped. Otherwise, it is only hollow-minded gawking as your mind tries but fails to fit the experience into an existing neural pathway that isn’t there. This is the limit of being yourself that I speak of. It is the ultimate outer limit, so we now have a scale. The minimum of being yourself is the cookie-cutter human on the trodden trail. The maximum of being yourself is the girl that runs off into the forest who turns out to be a totally non-human alien.
Now, what does this mean for an artist? I think it comes down to appetite for the risk of being an alien. How far out are you willing to venture in order to find something new?
Now I have a better sense of why my mom got so upset when one of my siblings or I said that we didn’t like the dinner that she made for us.
As I cooked chili today, I found myself making decisions on my own and not really following the recipe. I didn’t measure anything. I added one cup of diced tomatoes instead of two. I added corn even though the recipe didn’t call for it. I was enjoying the creativity and I found myself thinking, “I hope this tastes good.”
Since I changed the recipe, it became my chili. If it doesn’t turn out well, it’s not the recipe’s fault; it’s my own fault. The chili is still simmering in the dutch oven on the stovetop in the kitchen. I don’t have any children to tell me how it tastes, but I hope my girlfriend likes it.
I do not feel dreadfully the need to conform. I write “dreadful.” You read this and think to yourself, ah, it’s not so bad! “Look here,” you might say to me, “here I am conforming, and it’s really not that bad. It certainly isn’t dreadful.” I would respond, “But you are past the worst of it.”
Of course, to already be conforming is not so bad. But when was the last time you walked into the woods alone? When was the last time you didn’t agree? When was the last time you were hungry? In how many small ways did you, at first, think differently? And then, not all at once, but over time, your individual opinions slowly acquiesced and joined the general consensus.
See, it is a subtle dread. You will not have felt it if you have gone slowly over time. Like the criminal in his cell, awaiting the gallows. But the hangman is patient and cunning. Each night he comes to the criminal’s cell and asks, “Will you be ready in the morning?” And each night, the criminal says, “No, please, one more day.” Until one night, the hangman takes a different approach with the criminal. He says, “You know, I think you have learned your lesson. How about if we make a deal? Instead of hanging for your crimes, how would you like to serve as the hangman in my place?” How might the criminal’s view of the hangman’s position have changed, while he faced the prospect of his own hanging?
Which is the worst? To hang, to spend all your days in a cell, or to become the hangman? It is a trick question. You were never going to hang. The death penalty has been abolished. Exile is the worst that can happen to you. So the question becomes: how much do you fear exile?
What’s it like
In that moment
I wonder
When you die
Without any time
To think
About your life
And losing it
All at once
Except
For a split second
I try
To imagine
But can’t possibly
Fathom
What seems to be
Such a loss
To me
Still
Having not yet
Completely
Disidentified
With my ego
April 27, 2021 at 06:28PM
I look at someone
Walking by
On the sidewalk
As we pass
One another
And I wonder
Why
They are looking
Back at me
So funny
Until I remember
I have not showered
Or combed my hair
Do I contradict
Myself too often?
Does the name
That you used to call me
No longer apply?
Did I not stay
In the same place
For long enough
To be someone?
Did the waves
Wash away
What I wrote
In the sand?
Where can I possibly be
If not right where
You say that I am?
How can I possibly
Gain identity
All by myself?
Who will call me
By my true name?
I am searching for You.
I carry with me
Force
When I write
Walking
To the bathroom
For a break
I bump
The door frame
With my hip bone
And almost
Knock
The house down
You’re not living just repeat, repeat, repeat. You have to shake it up to live again. Find newness to force yourself back into survival mode. Living the same groundhog’s day digs the trench too deep. Eventually it gets so deep that you look up along the canyon walls and you have no energy left to climb out, so you say to yourself, “Well, I guess this is just my canyon.” And then you keep on digging deeper. But there’s no light down there! No other creatures to keep you company. Back up on the surface you can skim along. Sure, you might wonder about the core. You might wonder, what’s down there? As you hop and skip over and across other canyons. You look down and see the others so deep down there and you think, maybe I should stay put and cut my own canyon. But don’t do it! Not until you’re good and ready to die.
I am dying all the time already. I am letting it happen now rather than later. I wait for something small to end and then I think about what it will be like when it all ends. Something gets taken away from me and I think about what it will be like when it all gets taken away.
I eat the last cookie in the cookie jar and think of what it will be like to draw my last breath. I lose feeling in the leg that I had crossed over my other leg for too long and think of what it will be like to no longer be in my body. I try to trick myself into believing before I go to bed at night that I won’t wake up in the morning.
I do not know the best way to die. Is it better to pretend that it will never happen and then take the shock all at once when it does? Maybe I’ll die in a sudden accident and I won’t even know. But just in case it happens slow, I feel like I should practice.
You have to be loosey-goosey
Let it go
If you’re going to throw it all
Against the wall
And see what sticks
You can’t keep it all
Because it’s not all good
Can’t all be good
Even if only in relation
To the rest
Some will be bad
So don’t grow too attached
To your babies
You’ll only get to keep
A few
You are so you
As I look at you
At the features of your face
Which seem to match
The words that you are saying
It all goes together
Like a character in a movie
Unless you are faking it
Then you are really
Quite a good actress
But I do not
Think that this is possible
For you to pretend
To be someone else
And thereby escape
From being yourself
For even if pretending
To be yourself
Then that would just mean
That you are a pretender
And that’s just what you are
But you are not
You are different
Like everyone else is pretending
They’re all pretenders
And you’re the only one
Who is really yourself
Everything is repeated
Everything is repeated
Everything is repeated
The newspaper headlines
The movie plot lines
The causes of death
The reasons for war
The days and the nights
The sun rising
The sun setting
Falling in love
Falling out of love
Getting hungry
Being satisfied
Succeeding
Failing
Except for dying
That’s the only
New thing left
I was sitting on the back porch having lunch with my grandparents. My grandma and grandpa were sitting in chairs next to each other, across the table from me.
It was the day after Easter. The buds of the first leaves were starting to show on the trees in the backyard.
“Those are farm trees, the ones that grow the hedge apples,” my grandma said.
“I have a list that’s 17 pages long, and you know what …” and I already knew by the tone of his voice that there was a characteristic grandpa-joke coming, “It’s single-spaced!”
“Hah!” He laughed like he always did.
“I’ve got to change the oil in the car,” said grandpa.
“That should be at the top of the list,” said grandma.
“I know it. And I’ve got to put another coat of paint on the door,” said grandpa.
“Well that should be toward the bottom of the list,” said grandma.
“Well, no, it’s at the top of my list,” said grandpa.
“The sun is starting to come over the house now,” said grandma.
“I’m gonna go get the umbrella,” said grandpa. And off he went.
When they find me, when I make it, when I get lucky—they’ll box me in right then and there. So maybe it won’t be so lucky. Maybe I never want to be found. They’ll take me as I am, and then thereafter, I’ll have to work very hard to break out and become anything else. I might even have to work harder than I did to become something in the first place. Because to become something in the first place is just that—become it, and that’s it. But to become something else when you are something already requires an extra step—you must first break free of what you are already, and only then can you start to become something else. At first, I thought only of the social problem: what “they” will call you, what “they” will say you are. But the other, more subtle, and probably more dangerous part is what I call myself and what I say that I am. Because then I will build up an internal identity for myself and start to behave that way, just the same as society would build up an identity for me externally. And I think this matters for my writing. Because I don’t want to be boxed in. I don’t want to write just one way, from just one perspective. I want to write it all. And, of course, I know that I can’t. But I still want to try to get as much of it down as I can. And in order to do that, it seems that I need to stay loose and alone, being nothing more than a vessel through which experiences can pass and in their passing be quickly recorded before they shoot out the other end. I needn’t retain any of their details as parts of my own identity. I need only to study them like a scientist, let my senses record their findings, and then avoid them like snakes in the grass.
I like the night. It is dark, quiet, and mostly made up of nothing. My back hurts less when I am lying down. Unlike the day, there are no disappointments, fears, angers, or other irritations—because nothing is happening at night. The lights are off. The doors and windows are shut. Nobody else is here. This is as close as you can get to the land before time, the land before anything. The night can be nothing, if you let it. That is, until you start to dream or otherwise create something with your own mind on the black canvas of the night. Even then, you are not limited by the rules of reality that afflict the day. The day can only be so much. The night can choose to either be nothing or anything. The day can only be something, and that something just is what it is. In the night you can choose. If you’re sick of it all, you can rest in the nothingness. If you want something more, you can dream it up. I do start to miss the day eventually. I want it to be real. Even if I can’t choose, it’s worth giving up some freedom of choice just to be a part of the real thing, especially being with others who are real and not just figments. The best mornings or the ones when I have started to miss the day as much as I can and that’s right when I open my eyes to see the morning sun peeking in through the drapes.