the broken bicycle

a dying bear

2012-02-08T16:24:00.001-08:00

the summer held him

warmly as a mother might

kept his muscles taught teeth

clean eyes focused and brilliant

then rain came

falling slowly with fir needles

from the higher boughs

the afternoons became hazes

stones in the roadside grass

chipped his teeth

in the night he either walked

or stared. after the eighth

day of rain he walked the high river

but got tired before daylight

rested in a cedar hollowed by fire

while outside the wet darkness shivered

then the snow came but no sleep

on the first night he stood in a clearing

near a dead hunter's cabin

sharp ice cracked around his lips

one eyelid frozen closed

ribs like dead sticks under his fur

he stared at the darkness on the edge

of the clearing and it closed in

he saw the ocean once when he was younger

it was the only other time

he'd ever dreamt there was a god

the dogs

2012-02-06T13:52:00.001-08:00

on monday

i'll create something

new.

it will

devastate the living

i've been doing

as of late. my hair

smells like devil

when i wash it.

on monday

we will catch

the wind under our wings.

today is sunday.

the dark on the horizon

spreads like ants on honey

and the dogs remember

they have teeth.

what makes us humans

2012-02-06T00:21:00.000-08:00

should I tell her the three names

from last weekend

would it help or hurt things

she likes me silent as a star

and as strong

but I tend to break

from the weight

of feeling nothing

I say too much

the blood runs

from my nails like little roses

dropped on the floor

it gives me away but I guess

it has to show itself somehow

mary II

2012-02-06T00:12:00.001-08:00

i remember the smile

you gave me in class

the morning your baby

brother died. if i told

the truth when you asked
what i've become

since you last saw me

you'd have given me

the same smile pulled

out of blackness like

bodiless hairs pulled

from old graves.

i remember the tears too
but they seem less

crippling than that smile.

we'd sit in my ford

while the windows fogged

& i think i've cried the last

of mine but i wonder

if they still come for you.

the weather in 2009

2011-12-09T03:42:00.001-08:00

i'll still worry

about your mind

the landscape of stars

these days the night

dies in silver

no later than 4 pm

the thought of losing

everything is the sliver of moon

and the darkness of your house's

windows when i get high and walk

around the neighborhood after midnight

last night i dreamt you drowned

in the silver sea

your hair like the ink

from a sunken red cedar

i remembered this time

not to save you

country music

2011-11-28T10:31:00.001-08:00

outside our friend's party

my townes van zandt t-shirt

is wet with your mascara

this will be your mother's third

divorce since she had you

i hand you a cigarette

but forget about the lighter

so you just stand there

with the filter in your teeth

it is 2 am

the party is still loud

the balcony is silver from frost

everything the world is ever going to give you

is going to turn out like this

regarding your suicide (attempted)

2011-11-24T17:21:00.001-08:00

i'll fill the hole where god was

i'll love you

give you

take you

touch your empty cheeks

your shallow skin

the bones

that show

around your neck

i'll kick you while you're down

sunlight on the sidewalk, cold in the theatre

2011-11-07T00:02:00.001-08:00

you're smoking outside when a woman

calls you in from the window

to say the lobby doors let in

the light

you apologize

blame the owner

go back outside

you watch the shadows drag

themselves across the road

like cats with broken legs

collapsed lungs

while the sun drowns

behind the royal kebab and grill

you see the eyes of every body

that passes

you see the eyes of their crow heads

black no matter what and easily forgettable

and you think you've figured out what

you are

not another species but different breed

the rusty laugh of death row

skin ready to turn to smoke

women rely on you for this

someone easy for them to quit

they figure maybe your eyes won't bother

to open

next time sun crosses over the bed

easy exit easy exit easy exit

easy exit

the street gets darker quieter quicker

the sun gone now entirely

cars breeze up the hill

into the funeral sky

the lights on the theatre marquee switch on

and across the road a neon sign

with a few more breaths left in it

alive but dying

2011-11-06T11:40:00.000-08:00

they took down the sign for alzu's

that family restaurant

at the corner of blanshard and bay

it was always lit up before

the windows would move

alive at all hours

just barely but alive still

in the dead nights

the last meal i had there

was a plate of chili fries

at 3am on a wednesday

a grey hair got caught

on my fork when i tried to take

my first bite

as i pulled

the hair unraveled

it pulled

apart the food

like a thread from a sweater

by the end

the fries were crumbled on the plate

the hair more than a foot long

hanging

dead from my fork

i could see the cook in the dish window

hair halfway down his skinny back

and i thought

if i send my food back

that fucker will spit in it

i sent my food back

the waitress spoke at the cook

and the cook shrugged

breathed

then got to work making

everything

over again

and for a few seconds i couldn't

see him through the window

my plate came back

the fucker had spat in my fries

i got up to leave but stopped

at the door to look at the cook

and the cook looked up and saw

me and stopped working

he stared back

he was sweaty

pale

the ghost of

a thousand fights lost

i nodded to him

he smiled a bit

lifted his hand to wave

back

the fucker didn't have a clue

but what he did know

was that the end would

come

soon

enough

it always does

so why should

he care

foxfire

2011-10-13T13:21:00.001-07:00

the winters on the property

are mostly a time for things to die

and aunt arie was no exception

my wife ree cried when she got in

the truck and it still smelled like hot

moss or i mean hell it smelled

like a body does when it's been dead

for twelve hours in the snow then thaws

on the passenger side on the long drive

to port townsend where it will get

turned to chalk

the night of the funeral the whole

family stayed the night there in town

even cousins from as far as twin falls idaho

we booked up seven rooms in the best western

which had free hbo and ree watched that

a while to get her mind off things but

i fell asleep right away and i dreamed

for the first time since the dream i dreamed

when i was fifteen falling asleep on the phone

at three am while poor ree just cried about

finding her dog dead under a red oak

and the dream i had while ree watched

a drama set in prison was the same dream

i had when she cried about her white dog

and the seasons were the same so in this

dream

it's snowing

i'm building

a log cabin

like the one

i built for my aunt

arie to die in

a room for her

and a room

for me and ree

so we could make

fires and soup

for her and maybe

live our lives there

but in the dream

i build with

human bones

a mass of them

in the clearing

snow stacking

on the bones and

my shoulders and

it's caked on my irish

setter boots

i break the cold

ground and dig

the foundations

to set the sills

i use mostly spines

then i lay the sleepers

down which i think I fashion

from legs and they will support the floor

nailed into place with locust pegs made from thumbs

i begin to hew and notch the bones with aunt arie's

old axe which i found near the stack of bones

the hickory handle still exposed though half buried

in snow and the snow falls now heavier and heavier and thicker

and thicker flakes fill the creases in my coat and i start to hurry

to get the bones hogpen notched and build up the walls faster

than the snow can bury them but the snow gets in my gloves

and within seven minutes i can't feel my hands and when i take

the gloves off my hands are red just the only red trembling in all that white and i go

to breathe warm air into them but can't feel anything come from my mouth

so i just get my pouch from my pocket and roll one and light it

with a match and don't have any trouble with that and i smoke without hurry

and the snow continues to fall but the cigarette i hold with the fire close to my palm

and i am warm and know well that there's no hurry and i take the time to wonder

where all these bones did come from and what will happen to me if the snow doesn't stop

hunger

2011-10-13T13:20:00.001-07:00

first the tattoo then

the shaving my head

in your back yard

in plastic sunglasses

it took three hellos

before you knew me

i wonder what i'll do

next just to scare you off

buy pornos at the corner

store and give them to you

like gifts or show up

drunk on your door step

wrap my arm around your

mother's waist and

kiss her in the kitchen

we saw a black bear

near telegraph cove

last fall with wet hair

parted at the scars

it moved like hunger down

the bank to lie down sick

in the gravel and roadside

not two hundred metres from there you

pulled onto the shoulder and cried for an hour
cause you finally understood me

what they don't know

2011-10-05T01:04:00.000-07:00

at 3 am

when we couldn't anymore

we walked down

past the construction

to Mcdonalds

it hurt our eyes

after seeing all that night

we suddenly

weren't hungry

so we stopped at the Shell

and you bought

a pack of smokes you

said

you'd share

all this

in your underwear

and no shoes

and no bra on

under my virgin wool sweater

you said

wasn't too scratchy

it's nice

walked back

past the smell

of new road

past the sleepy windows

of my neighbors

who could

just as easily

live like this

stupidly and for just a little while

summer falling like wet ink

into the lines in our hands

and you thought it

was wrong

at first

and said so

with your eyes closed

and your hand

on my belt

but then

the night just

got darker

that peach

2011-10-05T01:01:00.001-07:00

you take the first bite

feel the skin tear and the hundred

small hairs love your tongue

as you eat

the water collects in your hand

you wipe that on

your shiny knees

the water collects at your chin

you wait for someone

to kiss it off

the smell is like a friend's front porch

and the rain when the sun's out

then it dries there

it is sticky and you can't

pretend to be waiting

anymore

and you can start to cry

now

now that you remember

now that the pit is a naked cockroach

you didn't quite kill

its blood has gotten into

your tablecloth

the pit

always bigger than you want it to be

if you were God

you'd make it smaller

so more fruit could fit around

this summer's song.

2011-10-03T12:15:00.000-07:00

north

on the ferry to lasqueti

2011-09-11T12:06:00.000-07:00

tyson's hand holds the railing
red cedar skin glowing white at the knuckles
the hand shakes cold
he steals the cigarettes from behind his ear
bites the filter, holding it there
reaches into his pocket for his black bic

i ask what his father would say
he laughs like rain falling by chance through
the thinnest crack in your car window
"i've never wanted to run a marathon"

he stares at the wake of the boat
our terrified silver whale towed half dead
by eight iron hooks at the ends of thick ropes

through life

2011-07-25T13:19:00.001-07:00

on the drives home
you like the back seat
your feet up on the window
like that dylan album art.
once in a while
the wind through the open
window will lift one
or two of your hairs onto my neck
and hold there a while.

my brother reid compares women
to bottles of wine.
i prefer to call them shotguns.

but really i think they are
those brass rings on a rowboat
that hold the oars steady
as they beat their way through life.
they are the little white swells
that explode in the black water
every time.

on july 23rd
a year ago yesterday
your hair was brown
your teeth were clean and
your cheekbones were violent
and that was all you were to me.

and now look.

silver bed (song)

2011-06-13T01:39:00.001-07:00

there go my songs for you
little lungs drown in blue ink for you
and the shadows chase them down
down
down
down
the riverbed

i built this life from the sweat of the pines
you might ask what happened and who am i
but that's a secret i'll keep until i die

i'd trade it all just to look you in the eyes
and i'll never tell you why or tell you why
that's a secret i'll keep until i die

but i'd give it all to make a bed for you
i'd pull down the vines i'd bind the wood for you
and watch the shadows carryin you down
down
down
down
in your silver bed

and the ocean's gonna swallow you dry
it gets us all in a matter of time

i'll watch you float away in the haze of gunsmoke
and stare into your eyes as they close

and i'd give it all to make a bed for you
i'd chop the wood i'd bind the vines for you
wade through the water, carry you down
down
down
down
to your silver bed

the way you challenge

2011-05-25T04:14:00.001-07:00

make all
the buildings
we've been to sing
you're a fighter when the blue
lacy ghosts knock at you
and you tell me
i could be free
if i forget what that means

this is a ceremonious day
like the one where
you held your hand on the stove
and the smell filled the house
and the front yard

but back to the buildings
i hope they sing
as they fall down
like my head to my knees
the sight and sound of it
will be a lifeline from
your eyes to where
you came from
your face gone wild like a skinny lion

you may not even
cough
from the smoke

a breather.

2011-05-14T16:16:00.000-07:00

outside this old
ghost cold warehouse
the sun stitches quilts
over the sidewalk
and the gold with glass
weeds that grow through

last night i had a dream
you pressed my neck
against the wall
i felt the concrete
on my shoulder blades

the ferocious seasons passed
for a lifetime
in your eyes

the work stays
the same though
and you're still the wind
running circles round my fingers
and my dirty jeans
are wearing thin at the knees

gold

2011-05-07T14:11:00.001-07:00

bird's song
on the radio
i know it gets better
from here
the summer in your eyes
where the blue and green
lines weave and clovers
bend down
wilderness comes undone
in your shirt buttons
i can't run much longer
from you

whatever happens

2011-04-28T02:10:00.000-07:00

we climbed the hill
just outside the suburbs
to say a better
goodbye
watched the ocean
grow away
to the cascades
you say your teeth
will fall out
if you don't go

i can't help that i
become like my idols
life gets under
my nails
dressed as dirt
i want nothing more
than to get the fuck
out of this town
i talk it up
my coats get holes
in the elbows
my boots are crested
with the mountain's mud
but that's as close as i ever get
to leaving

i just watch your hair grow
longer than i've ever seen it before
i'm too scared to call it
beautiful now

the cigarette hidden
behind my back
burns down
like the house
i watched you walk into

every night
around four a.m.
to go to sleep
and dream
about your teeth falling out
into your small
careful hands

fall

2011-04-12T04:54:00.001-07:00

the road

we're walking

on is guided

almost the whole way

by the tide

it wraps around

rises and falls again

like your eyes

scattered up and

down my arms

i was raised to let

it all pile up

rat shit fell

from the ceiling

but worse

were the wet

plastic bags

in the sink

but your

small town hair

crawls

like the stalking

treads of young wolves

thru the night

such a soft

pace and touch

it almost terrifies

me but i don't

shake or let it

show

the salty air holds you

sticks like cotton

at your skin

you close

your eyes

to take it all in

i use the second

to forget whatever

made me let go

light

2011-04-04T14:58:00.001-07:00

a man doesn't

realize how much

it hurts

until he sees

the cut

in his shin.

i watched you cry rust

from fire escape eyes

like a child i only

wished i could hold you

though

what i'd have done

then

i'm not sure. would

it have mattered?

the biggest blow

won't come until the end.

i want to capture you

in a thick glass jar

because the sun

and the light in all people

shines from your nails, it

drips down my chin

stains my collar

the color of rest. i'd

let you go

when the sun crashes up

through the blinds.

that's the only

promise i can keep.

teardrops -

2011-04-02T22:32:00.000-07:00

what winter's bone says about masculine heroism

In Debra Grant’s Winter’s Bone, the character of Teardrop - played by one of my favorite actors, John Hawkes - is a fresh take on the macho Hollywood hero. In some ways he suits the archetype – he could be compared to the stoic rangers in old Westerns. But there’s genuine complexity to his character, and an emotional tangibility that separates him from the familiar hero. What allowed for a character like him is the society the film was about, a class of people that hasn’t been explored much in films before. The “class” I’m talking about is the backwoods people of Southern states such as Georgia or Missouri. Winter’s Bone is a film focused on the gritty realism under the garnish that is romanticized Americana. It’s only in a film like Winter’s Bone that a character like Teardrop can be written; he’s hard in all the ways you don’t want him to be, and softened in ways you can’t understand. In that sense, he’s like my own father. He’s also like many other real people that are scarcely represented in film. Anyone who’s been exposed to the darker corners of contemporary society knows a Teardrop.

On the surface, Teardrop tends to appear unaffected, carrying himself with an I-just-don’t-give-a-damn sort of composure. The crust is what makes him dangerous. It’s impossible to tell when he’s going to be driven over the point where he starts lashing out. We see it when he’s first introduced. Throughout the scene Ree tries to guilt Teardrop into helping her find her father; his brother. It is as though allows himself to get more and more affected by Ree that eventually he needs to react so that she doesn’t change his mind. So, he grabs her by the hair and forces her back in her chair and whispers, “No”. Another time we see Teardrop react violently to something is when he’s asking the men outside the bar for information regarding his brother. They begin to threaten him explicitly. So Teardrop takes the axe from the back of his truck and smashes the windshield of one of the men. They shout at him but he doesn’t give them another look as he climbs back into his truck and drives away. From these scenes we can gather that Teardrop is something of a badass, and not necessarily in the good way – he has a habit of treating women roughly, and he snorts meth like it’s a sinus relief spray.

Though Teardrop has that thorny exterior, Winter’s Bone is a deeply intimate film, and we are occasionally given fleeting looks into his sensitivity. The first clue we’re given is his name, which contrasts the reputation it carries around the community. It’s never explained in the film what significance his name has, but it’s no doubt referring to the “X” tattoo he has under his left eye, which could mean any number of things. Tattoos in the shape of a teardrop originated in the Chicano gangs of California. They can mean either that the bearer has killed as killed somebody, or that they’ve lost someone close to them. Either of these possibilities could relate to Teardrop, but I don’t think the character runs around with any Chicano boys. Symbolically, Teardrop’s tattoo represents the suffering that a man with a reputation like his must go through in order to keep everything inside.

Teardrop is lonely in the world he occupies. His toughness, and the toughness of the other men in his life keep him alienated. This could explain why he ends up helping Ree in her search. He begins showing her a warmth that contradicts the way he treats her earlier on in the film. Teardrop wishes, in his state of isolation, for the simpler times, when Meth was not the issue, and it was him and his brother. In Ree’s younger siblings, he sees himself at their age, the most innocent version of himself. At the end of the film, he brings them chicks to raise, wrapped delicately in cloth. He smiles as he plays his brother’s banjo clumsily, cigarette in his mouth, and says to the children, “I was never good like your daddy”. His tenderness is more present in this scene than at any other point in the film; these moments before he tells Ree he knows who killed his brother. When she tries to give him the banjo, he tells her to keep it at the house for him, perhaps meaning that he intends to be around there more often.

My dad is an example of how Teardrop exists in society, and how Teardrop is, in a way, one of the major universal truths stated by the film. There are people like Teardrop everywhere, who have a complexity to them that is rarely conveyed in film at the same level of success as it is Winter’s Bone. My dad is a Teardrop. He spent the larger half of his life as a heroin addict, and after being clean for almost ten years, the weathering his face gained from years of abuse has not eased. It will only deepen now. Like Teardrop, he has a profound warmth and sensitivity to humankind (he’s a writer), but he’s tortured by the reputation he still has as a man who ignores caution and who wins fights.

When I was younger, and he was still battling his addictions, I was spending a Sunday afternoon with him as we did bi-weekly. On a walk to the neighborhood movie store, he ran into someone he knew. The conversation wasn’t friendly, and the other man started to yell and spit. I watched my dad stand toe to toe with this man while minutes passed. I remember the way he kept his voice low the entire time, and he never looked away from the man. He never looked at the ground or even stopped looking him in the eyes. Eventually, my dad started taking off the ring on his finger, and the man knew what that meant. He took some steps back, and in a moment was on his way. My dad smiled reassuringly at me, and we kept walking. About halfway down the next block, I looked up at him and saw that he was crying. I pretended not to notice.

Winter’s Bone places us in a grey world of grit and realism. Because the world captured is so full of truth, the characters can be too. Teardrop is both terrifying and touching, and this is the conflict that tortures him. He isolates himself with toughness and violence, while his sensitivity makes this state particularly lonely for him. Teardrop is in essence an honest variation on the stoic heroes of old Hollywood and new. Anyone who’s seen the world in this truthful, unforgiving light can say that they know a Teardrop. Reality is never too far off.

kieran in the taillights

2011-03-30T01:24:00.000-07:00

kieran
oh
god
kieran
look at how
we've been torn
apart by women slowly
for years now
our voices
have dried into
cracked clay
our hair kempt with kisses
from the ridges
of their lips
kieran don't you
remember the stupid solace
we found in the songs hid
under our beds
don't you remember
when we walked
like far off shadows
of ourselves cast on the cliffs
i think
it was better then
knowing ourselves
or at least we thought
we did
it was easier
just to think
we did
and it's hard
to say goodbye
to the sparks that shout
from our old burning limbs
but we both know
it's different now
i know you see it when
you wave after my
old chevy
as i pull away
back to the hills
of fort st. james where
the night shines
better when it rains
and you wave at me
in the taillights
and the moon
it's sad
for us both
and
you glow

stockton

2011-03-28T17:49:00.001-07:00

if i told you

about tomorrow

it would be cause

i want

you there

but kick the side

of the road

with hurt feet

you can tell me

anything

i say

the blue sky

speechless

like the war

between us

we tangle our hair

scratches on film

i never wanted

to be best

never thought

it was possible

but the bottle

terrifies me now

smoke fills up

my drawers

i sleep on

the floor while you

go and make yourself

known

and talk like you

were born

wearing dancing shoes

i blink careless

let the breeze interrupt

when the ghost bared his teeth (new song)

2011-03-26T15:48:00.000-07:00

tupelo.

the greatest reason for being here

2011-03-22T13:59:00.000-07:00

all the women
i know
have stinging skin
beg with dry knees
to be hurt
again. poems
get weaker

then die
like bears clawing
at their hearts
in a forest clearing.

the cracks in them welcome
us
in.

tupelo (song)

2011-03-20T16:11:00.001-07:00

the ghost spread his hands
over my neck
and said i was better off dead

but he's got no right
to tell me what will satisfy
when his voice smells like dried wine

i'm singer
and i'm a thief
i'm always on the grind
all the things
that i wish for
may never be mine

and i'll lie
and i'll gamble
away all of my dimes
but i'll tell
the girl i love her
and kiss her sometime

when the ghost bared his teeth
i ran for the golden plains
but i came home when i realized
i couldn't run away

now the moon sleeps so close
it's the fortune in my hands
but i'd give it all away to run with her again

and i'll lie
and i'll gamble
away all of my dimes
but i'll tell
the girl i love her
and kiss her sometime

so let's call
ourselves poets
and make it all sound sweet
as a lily
in her hair
her lip between her teeth

cigarettes are the only things i don't find sentimental

2011-03-19T00:09:00.001-07:00

i should be
a villain
to you
the way i made you
feel like muddy
water crying through
the drain.

why do you
still smile at me on
my front porch?

in your sweater
i see a blue dove's feathers
soaked with rain
forgetting.

oh you

2011-03-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

maybe you're the nothing
that's been on my mind
that hangs my head and shames me
like a skinny hemlock dream

my coat gets too heavy
while we watch winter ride away

i'll take it off
if you stop
playing it cool

all the summers

2011-03-14T00:10:00.001-07:00

your fingers play
like absence in the tall grass
golden scar rails
next to where you lived

spread cherry blossoms
over his lips
so he can taste
all the summers
he missed

when he falls in and out
of sleep next to you
whisper
stay
watch the word
turn to sparks
on the sheets

la grange II (pale and tall)

2011-03-13T12:27:00.001-07:00

the wind blows
and i see his face
the same ghost
and he screams to me
all the noise comes
out of him
and i can't tell
if he hates me
or if it's a warning
to get out of here

la grange

2011-03-11T00:37:00.001-08:00

the ground shakes
and i don't know
if it's just my head or
if there's a quake
bleeding sparks
under us

everything these days
is like this
the pleasure you could
do without
my hours of sleep
here and there
rise into nothing
what's beautiful now
and what i once
thought was ugly
the war in between

a crack in your face
doesn't tell me much
but when wings shake
and lavender wishes
between my eyes
i go
and
i steal for the hell of it

we loved the tune
when the trumpets begged
the car idled
with you on my seat
i've never given much
thought to kings
but then i'd have given it all
for the gold that hadn't
been touched
in your skin
we buried it that night

carlie

2011-03-07T21:32:00.000-08:00

if i could get
more sleep
it would only be
with that smile
of yours
curling again
like a loosened
drum
i remember
your wool coat
smelt like rain
you made
everything better
for just
that second

phaedrus (i dream of robert pirsig)

2011-03-07T01:19:00.001-08:00

alone in the hills
where he can see the town
turn and tears clean the oil
from his chin

he's trying to find
himself again
in his boots' laces
and pocket scraps
but maybe
he's always been further
than he'd like to be
like the copper backed
river falling too fast
for the sea

phaedrus said
isn't it amazing
how the sun can light up
both sides of the mountain
even when it rains

pirsig's eyes throw pennies
into the river
and he misses everything
but the river laughs
and it heals and
it changes beautifully

a ghost is born

2011-03-05T17:24:00.000-08:00

there's always
a change
when i see headlights
alone on a spilt ink road
or the red eye flying fiery for l.a.
afterwards
i just don't think the same

your desert hair crawls
lonely tonight
but i'd be with you
if i could see through the leaves
thick as they fall
turning life over again

this winter
was a dead man
but as the months
pass
we feel
more and more

i should just be happy

2011-03-03T03:33:00.001-08:00

why does there

seem to be

nothing here anymore

i remember

we smelt the strength

of shorepines

by the riverbed

but all we cared about

was the way the cigarette

looked

behind my back

while i kissed you

and shit

what about all

the ghosts we thought up

with eyes that told us

how to live

like a petty crime

the world seems so

much bigger

now

that you're not mine

and i'm scared

it's gonna keep spreading out

and i'm scared

of myself without your tears in my hands

tonight i was so fucking mad

i could barely say goodbye

and i thought it was strange how

you still laughed

and your mouth overflowed
with butterflies

flagstone motel

2011-02-27T04:34:00.000-08:00

your hair plays violin and the sound
fills the bedroom with homebred warm
i haven't done this for a while
the sheet still has the rip from my toenail
my hands are so useless now they look
for breaths to grab
the well is plentiful
but the ghost is still mad
i don't know
how to please him
so he keeps
my black eyes fresh

oh god what a town can look like
driving through in the dark
lit up gas stations and gun stores
an ocean of infinite stars
the dreams you tell me about
are full of silhouettes
take a heartache seriously for once
it tells a good story

these days food really
doesn't taste the same
your lips are rare
i can't seem to get enough of the ocean
wealthy smell of sand
we sleep in smoking rooms
keeping the windows open
letting that air in we hallucinate ease
and it brings us solace
wildfire solace
and back again with your jeans
creased with oil
and wandering
and river
and sky

if every home but mine
were to die in one night
i'd still wake up in the morning and hear
leaves blowing in smooth wind and catch
embarrassed plums as they fall
i'd remember everything you gave me
like a bouquet
with the feelings in the middle

i am dishonest
i'll say anything for the breath
of spring on my brow
but for now i let
the city blink the same
and rest like a season passed

to be better

2011-02-24T15:59:00.000-08:00

how perfect is the sound
of the snow stirring and cresting
outside the window
to explain your misery

it's been months now
since you last
noticed a bird
or wrote down a dream

if you took all the mistakes
made and showed them
the wool in your warm
coat's lining
they'd manifest cooly
into a deaf ghost who shouts
throughout the night
"what about the rail yard"
who wakes you up holding your face
like a bruised pear
squeezing tears from it

his voice is the crushing glass
in your chest
it's as old and unresolved
as the snow's sleepless sobbing

the girl you blame is as pure
she told you herself
she's scared of stealing
and her tears are only real
you ignored yourself forever
so the ghost stands
and the ghost stares
naked as white marble
on the foot of your bed

live like this for a while
finish the pack
keep your knife close
let your cheek's tears freeze
in the snow now so you know
you were meant to feel
and search for the rest of yourself
it is a song buried dark in the raven's choir
and it all starts tonight

eucalyptus

2011-01-20T17:36:00.000-08:00

the secret is the stillness
stormy womb in the palm of your hand
a whisper of charlotte in the whiteness
strong ashes virginia in the crease

to the ones back home
you are only what they see and your skin
is so soft they could shave it
off the bone
but how perfect the weather underneath
throes and turns and it throes
and throes and throes

it started last winter

2011-01-09T08:19:00.001-08:00

you never meant to kill the kids

but while you baptized them they drowned

skinny white shoulders between your hands

cold river quiet and ashamed

crying like a dog at your knees

now my best friend writes out prayers in her bedroom

while the afternoon rains on her windowsill

if a body catch a body

2010-12-14T15:35:00.000-08:00

You can download the play I finished recently by clicking this.

i beg for weapons

2010-12-02T01:10:00.001-08:00

you told me you were the true vine

where are your leaves

i knew the dew that wetly whispered

on you was flat champagne anyway

these days all that is

left to love

crumbles like a pain

it will be gone

a year from now

if i return home and you are not

what you said you would always be

i am sure i'll die

the catskills

2010-11-23T21:12:00.000-08:00

the river outside turned
to ice on Sunday and I watched
it from the window
of my home
my eyes were wet cause i'd just
learned of John's passing
sometimes this sort of thing
is just a blessing
like the fire in the eye
of a grey whale
before she goes down
sinks with great power into the dark
but maybe it's not so much
to think about
six winters ago
I wouldn't have known what to say
about it
and it's no different now
just the house feels colder
and the women in town
treat me more like a father
whose hand to hold
than a man to love and try
to change
but I don't think it's anything
different
it's a crack in the barn door
where a little moonlight steals in
it's nothing much to think of
so I brewed the last of the tea
and drank it all angelically
standing at the window
I watched the falling
snow fill up the tracks
of an old coyote
who sometimes wanders by

how to miss everyone

2010-10-24T17:18:00.001-07:00

your storm breath

is on my shoulder

i pass through everywhere

alone even with you

and your ideas of heaven

i feel bad fighting

so when i'm drunk

i laugh like shadows on your chin

now your eyes are wide as the water spills

and they are the only ones who know

the wounds are still itchy

so i tell them

listen

everything i've ever stolen

i just stole to smell

every cigarette was accidental

and when i hold my knife tight

in my pocket

i'm just wishing

i could hold it all

with such steady thrill

water is running off the table

onto your toes

you touch the top of my hand

soft on cold knuckles

while i sit stupid and stare at the wall

i just want you to stay

so i can leave

and come back to you again

a new song

2010-10-21T02:30:00.000-07:00

i'm a ramblin man at heart

my family they're all bankers

they count the money out

and lay it on the counter

and i never been in the movies

but i had some pretty good seats

watchin those pretty people

layin down their money

and it's not gonna be that hard

to take it all and tear it apart

i can always tell a funny story

when the night feels never-ending

some of my friends beatbox

and know how to throw a good party

drinkin gin and juice

sippin on bacardi

and i've always been a good liar

but i still write what i know

play the dark stranger

avoid the piano

but it's not gonna be that hard

to tear everything apart

these days my head's an empty cloud

but i still get so fucking proud

lives

2010-10-08T02:02:00.001-07:00

i like the night time

when the whole road is made

out to be gold by the only streetlight

on the block and where outside

on the sidewalk it's only

the smokers and bicycle thieves

and ghosts of the old town

grinding up dead leaves under

their boots and making up tunes

in their heads about becoming a sailor

or about spending their whole lives

trying to learn death

or about the woman who would

visit in dreams wearing

her screaming skin

like a wedding dress the whiteness

always turning to chalk in their hands

or the familiar trails at night of bent

wet blades of grass and the steel dime

shuddering through dark secret trees

moon on the lake and heart stopped

glimpse of young cougar's eyes catching

obscure owls calling and

every ghost

has a woods to trespass

and a feeling or a flutter in the dark

that is enough to send them

in the right direction home

and on the street the ghosts

here are all singing

the callous on the hand

where the fir's bark cut decades

the lamp post has expired in

a right gesture of love

inside it is warm

and i can only hear breathing

**

2010-10-04T13:15:00.001-07:00

the garden will always be

your favorite stranger

stare into his eyes like winding

stems are veins in his young hands

light candles and kiss him perfectly pale

you're unseen under the moon

this will never be remembered

it is just as you wanted it

the first time around

winter comes and he shies away

you never had to do any of the killing

the execution of thomas scott

2010-08-29T22:20:00.000-07:00

it was a shaking in the stars
that led louis riel astray
while he lied cold on the grass
near a blood running river
buried in wool, liquor
turning to angels from his mouth

the stars I saw in your eyes
when you sat ashamed next to me
lifted any religion from my mouth
forever, so now we're here
but can't be settled
we are gunfire in the hills

summer

2010-08-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

what is the weather
out the backdoor open
with beads hanging
like your eyes on a haze
horizon of dust

willingness and summer
it's a dry one, you
tell me
but i already
know

a stone of sweat
on your lip
your arms loose like thin rivers
i will miss you

you are not a man

2010-07-16T01:13:00.000-07:00

it isn't just truth
i'm trying to prove.
it's where the feelings really come from
when he paints them on her eyes

so i will punch him in the mouth

and while he's bluntly sleeping

take all the rings off of his fingers

dinners

2010-06-12T23:15:00.000-07:00

I could follow you around
more than I do
I could keep up with sports
and read the
other news

but it's always been
the dinners that matter
plates stacked on the counter
cold pepsis in the fridge

you love
your own cooking
she always told you that
you love almost
everything
I can tell you that

my heart goes out
to iron hands, knuckles
that want to keep going
jokes that want
to keep cracking
so

when I hear
those old stories
when I wear your old shoes
I know
that safely
I will become you

so let's not forget

2010-06-09T16:42:00.000-07:00

i have never
wanted so
badly
to keep going

where the motivation
came from
i'm not sure

maybe it had
something
to do with the way you looked
at me
just before we cried
both of us

i realized
everything then
how truthful life is
and we are
and
yeah

this

is what we
are

iam creek

2010-05-15T23:37:00.000-07:00

oh ball-hipped rose
you are the greatest wound
i've ever known
belly of poison
smooth breast of fruit

stab my elbows
full of thorns
teach my hand to kill

...there was a fire.

2010-04-19T19:36:00.000-07:00

My first recording using real gear. Very exciting. Thanks Noah.

As Long As I Can Take It

a waltz

2010-04-15T03:50:00.000-07:00

last cigarettes

this is just to say hello again

2010-04-10T03:41:00.000-07:00

An unedited poem about my grandma that I just found. Written two years ago.

now I am seeing
the sailboats out on the water,
little cabins
small sleeping,
dreaming,
making waves turn
into ashes,
blowing the tides my way,
settling in a sleeping window.
all is at a stop,
all is letting this be simple.

the sky isn't what it was two days ago
never light anymore
not a burden but always heavy
and you are still
there
where left like rain in potholes
you were
thinking only the same thing.
never asking what made our winds
strike our faces too hard
when we're not smiling,
what made our hands
hang useless and unwell.

the door closes too softly sometimes,
shutting out something,
a life missed
maybe
love
though
always there.
unsure faces never
let themselves ask the questions
that matter.
my father peddled his bike downtown
for long enough through the day
to see stars in the streetlights
so

it doesn't make the weather bad
or me sad
or children crying over
spilt good nature.

but it's the face
always wished for in dreams
and finally seen.
I've dreamt otherwise;
black birds on poles near the sea,
white skies turning.
our hair is seen always in these,
heavy, walking, brooding,
only minutes passing since
we were all fast sleeping.
now my fingernails are white and blue
now my eyes are stormy
open waters
and I'm watching freights and barges
in the bay, whispering
pleasant but ghostlike on the horizon.

you've loved your skin
you've loved sons and lost some.
I am not gone, only away
throwing clocks into the sea
with bones wide awake,
the smell of your bedroom
stuck in time, this time.
poetry is always just pages of seconds
never lost,
feet never buried in gravel
hands in pockets of snow
so I'm writing to you of sky.

it isn't what it was two days ago.
I am not what I was one week ago,
I am crystal.
it seems the sky is always heavy
people never truly passing by
all meditations
all emergencies
all bleakness of paths,
this is
all
so weary.

but the love used as a word of truth
not lightly
is under my bones this morning
white, easy, honest,
as the last good smile cast,
soft and free in your eyes.
a wandering satellite, and the smell
of dullness, dreaming,
a constant hope never muted
and the winds break,
wheels turn under,
traveling, blooming this shoreline,
wrestling, all trees shaking
deep in their spines.

you've kept warm in blankets,
made love to softness.
the world is a simple
breath on your blushes.
a bicycle loves the world it drops into
each time it steps off of a curb,
this is
all
so valid.

nothing mistaken.
nothing lost in meditation
little prayers
finding peace,
little poems,
finding love
cracked and aching but alive.
the birds
lonely souls never without company
don't sing, rather cry
and I am wondering who for,
if I should be crying with them, for them,
against them like a thin stream
but never answering, they are all
in sleeping.
where is the crying from then?
they are all within dreams
on the wire.
each is a sadness,
the world also sleeping
so nothing singing at all
but they still cry in one sad song.

we don't hear, just see tears soaked
in the morning blue feathers.
they are tied by what holds our wings
ties our ankles down,
holds our dreams together.

finding answers is only one thing
you can do in a forest grove.
when I walk these days
wearing gloves and dirty shoes
I see leaves on the ground, ready.
the last ones on the trees
are deep in the branches,
in the smell of rain.
they are melodies
black and shaking.

long time

2010-04-05T17:18:00.001-07:00

if there's nothing
really happening
my suggestion is this
walk down to the nearest
lake
to you
(it is important that you
walk)
find a bench
in memory
of some Stephen Norman
loved by his wife
and children
probably some
friends from the
army too
light a cigarette
or take a drink from that
flask or hell
take some deep breaths
do
whatever it is you do
when you are relaxing
listen to the wind
see the way it moves
the water around
the way it moves
the leaves and the grass
around
listen to the birds
but don't pay too much
attention to the birds
let your head wander
and I know
what you will be thinking
if you're anything
like me or like anyone
you will be hoping
this is how it will be
when you go

ponderosa

2010-04-03T18:12:00.000-07:00

i've never sat
in that chair
with overrun river
eyes, watching you
feel up time
wearing your secret
dress, letting your breasts
whisper on the hem
like linen

with a noise, a caution
somewhere back in the thatched
ceiling of red
alders on their knees
a belly of cool
grass and yarrow

you
never a liar
me
never the breeze
i pretend to be

for as long as I can take it (song)

2010-04-03T04:33:00.000-07:00

that's how it starts
you do your dance and you smile
where'd that smile come from

should I be worried about that

you plant you kisses down
on each of my knees
and dance away slowly

there's a lover I can't be

cause this is everything
in the book you told me to write for you

there's a dead patch on the tired hill
where we built the house we could never fill
we told the bank to go straight to hell
watching it burn I'm wondering still

if I saw you on my front steps
would I unlock the burning door
or bury myself in the floor
or would I just play these old chords
smoke the air and play these old chords

this is just to say
i made it on my own

and the folks back home
with the ink in their bones

they've got their tvs on
and they'll never know

the dead patch on the tired hill
where we built the house we could never fill
I told you twice to go straight to hell
while my sleeve caught fire I was wondering still

if I'll always be the one
to say goodbye

we get dressed
I put on my coat
you punch me in the chest

fists pale like cigarettes

that's how it starts
you do your dance and you smile
where'd that smile come from

mary

2010-03-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

there's no need

for this kind of fear

out of you

your buried shoes

black keys paint peeled
cherry oak shown

by the sun

but twice each year

the rain still comes

and soaks you through

waning crest

avail yourself

there's no need

for your cross or quiet

instruments here

beyond repair (fa)

2010-03-18T21:41:00.000-07:00

this is where I get lost
don't look for me, don't follow me

when the moon is on the road
I wonder, could I mine the silver

and head out into the night
hand in my pocket, holding onto that light

but if I pour out the bottle
and throw it at the wall
would I wake up anyone
or would I just hear my blood run down my hands

this is all it's supposed to be
there's nothing softer than this suffering
my eyes are getting darker every day
and my voice is getting harder every night

but for all the parties we're not going to
I'd say that you and I are gonna do alright

when the sun falls through the pines
I whisper, lord won't you be kind

but it won't be enough
to keep me from burning through the years in love

cause at the end of all our lives
I'll be the stranger still, heart drowned in moonshine

but if I pour out the bottle
and throw it at the wall
would I wake up anyone
or would I just hear my blood run down my hands

cause this is all it's supposed to be
there's nothing softer than this suffering
the ax is getting softer every day
and the flame is getting smaller every night

but for all the rain falling through my roof
I know I'm going to die alone with my lies

cache ta vie

cache ta vie

reflection #2 - the flask

2010-03-17T22:10:00.000-07:00

When I wrote the Flask, it was one of those moments in writing that one wishes life could be like all the time. It was inspiration somehow falling into place at all the right times. Often, "careless of failure, I spin out things on the page" (Stafford, William; A Way of Writing, pg. 2). That's sometimes the only way to write. You find yourself a period of time to work and that's what you do; you work. You write until you create something acceptable. Maybe you don't ever arrive at anything acceptable, but at least you were working.

There are instances though, where this "work" isn't necessary. Something just happens, and all of a sudden you've created. You've pulled ideas from within who-knows-where within you, turned them into something you can - in the case of this particular subject - sing. I suppose there's been a lot going on in my life that led towards the lyrics in The Flask, even though it isn't a song that is explicitly about me. This is how I find myself somewhere between the two creative instances found in Jarrett's Personality and Artistic Creativity. The act of writing the music for a song is a pretty conscious thing for me that I do "working freely, without any sense of being driven or compelled" (Jarrett, James L. ; Personality and Artistic Creativity , pg. 1). However, the way the words find themselves on top of that music is completely different. At times, yes, there are things I want to say about myself or someone else within the song. But most often, I am left "standing somewhat in awe of what has [appeared], as if from outer (inner?) space" (Jarrett, pg. 1). I'm writing about these figures, lives and histories that I've simply imagined.

When I wrote The Flask, the process was one of the purest that I've taken in a long time. Maybe that's why I was so satisfied with the result. Rather than writing in my room like I usually do, where there are so many distractions, I took my guitar and notebook into the backyard of my house. Though my house is small, I'm blessed to have a beautiful garden in the back. It's a quiet, private, secluded space. I sat down on the wicker bench and stayed there for two or three hours, writing and figuring everything out until the song was nearly in its absolute finished state. Obviously, this proved to be the best way for me to go about writing, at least when I know there's something inside of me burning to be on a page. It allows for no outside influence besides what my mind is telling me; whatever wants to manifest itself, from wherever it comes, it is free to do so. My "Way of Writing", has never been more meditative. I must try to write this way more often.

ghosts in the sky

2010-03-11T02:40:00.000-08:00

obsession got the upper hand (r.i.p.)

(fa) a dream:

2010-03-09T00:31:00.000-08:00

there was a vampire that had killed my whole family, and it was searching all the houses on my street for me. I ran out the back door of my house and started hopping fences, going from backyard to backyard. then I realized that he was stalking me and messing with me, as I noticed more and more fences having been torn down. through one of the gaps in fences, I saw the way up a grassy hill. I ran up the hill and at the top there was this one tree, that was short, but had a wide, circular canopy that I hid underneath. I found Emily there, she was hiding too. we waited there a while, and realized that he was tearing apart the neighborhoods all around us just to draw us out. Emily said, “we could always sing the song of the gypsy tree…” “that’s supposed to really work?” I asked. she told me that when gypsies on the countryside were hiding from nazis, they would seek refuge under these trees and sing a tune that would ward away the nazis. apparently before the war it was sung to keep away supernatural predators. so we began to sing it, and it was the high-pitched tune you can hear in the background of Sam Cooke’s version of Summertime. as I sang the song I was terrified of the sound our voices made, terrified of myself, and yet I felt safe from anything else.

the fence around the beast (FA)

2010-03-03T13:57:00.000-08:00

It is certain that creativity cannot be taught. It is certain because there is no one who has come up with a definition of creativity that the world can agree with. Even those who’ve formulated lists of elements within creativity – these lists are always to be speculated. Creativity is a beast too wild to capture and dissect. However, a fence could be built around the beast to pinpoint it. There is no way to teach creativity, but it can be inspired through a teacher/pupil relationship in a specific and unique setting, using isolation, conversation and motivation.

In Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters To A Young Poet (1984), he addresses the idea of isolation, saying that “What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours – that is what you must be able to attain” (54). He goes on to describe the feeling one has as a child watching adults walk around involved in things that seem important, but which only seem that way because as a child you don’t understand them. Rilke tells the reader that it’s important to hold onto that “not-understanding”, in order to separate oneself from the rest of society, maintaining one’s own solitude. It’s in an isolated setting, most likely a natural one, surrounded by vastness of trees and rivers or oceans, where creativity is most likely to be found and nurtured. For this to function academically, each student would have a respective space to feel alone in. When in this environment, total creative freedom would be given – students would work on projects based solely on their own yearnings.

Because the idea here is to draw blueprints for an ideal academic setting in which creativity could be stimulated, goals for the students to attain are fundamental in the process. These goals though, would be decided upon uniquely by each student, depending on their ambitions and mediums. Students work on their projects in isolation in order to reach their respective goals. In William Stafford’s A Way of Writing (1970), he illustrates the method in which he writes to be very purposeful, devoting a certain time of the day to his work: “I get pen and paper, take a glance out the window (often it is dark out there), and wait… Something always occurs, of course, to any of us” (615). This guarantee could not be made though, if one had no motivation to create. It is for this purpose that goals must be made; realistic, specific, and attainable ones. However, the goals themselves should be able to change completely, as the mind of a Creative Being is not always one to stay on task. If a student found their path taking a new direction, they would simply have to change their endeavors to suit it.

Every so often, as much as once each day or as little as twice each week, students would wander from their isolated areas of artistic indulgence, and meet all together with their teacher. This is where the teacher has the opportunity to share his or her experience and knowledge with the students, and inspire the class through lecture, conversation, and readings. It is important to remember though, that the idea of these meetings is not for the teacher to teach the students how to be creative, but rather to educate them in the history and beauty of creativity as a subject. Koans, as they’re described by Edward Stephens and Thomas Burke in “Zen Theory and the Creative Course” (1974), are an excellent model for the sort of teaching and learning that should occur in these meetings: “Since the atmosphere of monastery life alone cannot produce Enlightenment, just as the classroom alone cannot bring forth creativity, Zen training also relies on the interaction between the Master and his students. This takes the form of questions (called Koans) to which the student must respond. His response, coming from his soul, is a reflection of his nature, and therefore, is not to be judged as right or wrong by the Zen Master” (40). The difference is that Koans take days for students to answer, whereas the lessons and discussions had in these meetings must be kept within that meeting, and must arrive at some sort of conclusion. Students must not have any work or problems to distract them from their own projects once they’ve returned to their camps – to their easels, desks, floors, silence.

Now a step back must be taken from all of these words. Look at the blueprints from a distance. This is what they look like: There is a camp, probably somewhere deep within the woods. There are cabins with vastness between them, arranged in a circle. There is a student in each of the cabins. There, the student works alone on whatever art it is they feel the need to work on – they fill their days with productivity of art and love, because what else but those two things is able to fill nothingness? The projects they work on are based on goals made and remade throughout the course, depending on where their musings take them. In the center of the circle, there is a meetinghouse. This may also be the residence of the teacher; the mentor. This is where once every so often the group of students will assemble and their minds will all work together to answer questions or to simply soak in or tune out what the teacher wants to fill them with – they are encouraged to think critically. By keeping these lessons in the confines of the meetinghouse, students take what they want back with them to their camps, and remain independent. In “A Self-Defining Game for One Player” (2002) Harold Cohen says, “I think of autonomy now in terms of that weakly defined but strongly felt future state that manifests itself in the criteria that direct creative behavior” (64). This autonomy is something that can be tapped into only once a thinker, an artist, a Creative Being of any sort, is not creating for anybody but his or her own satisfaction and release. If that autonomy can be found, it is in some vast solitude. “For,” as Rilke puts it, “what would a solitude be that was not vast; there is only one solitude and it is vast, heavy, difficult to bear…” (54). And with art in mind, these are the greatest conditions one could ask for.

pull over (fa)

2010-02-25T23:08:00.000-08:00

to the side of the white
road, get out
and light a cigarette
this is nervous
this is the concrete trapped
under ice

you don't know where you're going
but you know
there's something you need to get right

warm your hands on the hood
the snow melts on it

you're at the frontline now
a balance of
comfort
and war

this is where you leave
it all
to be buried alive
in the snow

your hopes
and notes
and postage fares
your worried songs
your gloves from home

this is where you leave
it all
to stop breathing
in the snow

f.a.- Jean Genet's sunken beauty;

2010-02-24T21:25:00.000-08:00

the flask

we left at the quiet hour, the killing floor of the night

when the ghosts come by and wrap our hands in wire

I've filled the flask, I filled it for both of us

let's get drunk and fill up each other's eyes

with salt water

and moonlight

sharp and stinging

like moonlight

I don't know where we make room for all of our lies

let's hide our secrets in a small town on the shoreline

where there's a lover with a heart full of wine

and when it tips it makes a stain on the countryside

they can see it from

the neighborhood

and they talk about it in

the neighborhood

I've known those hillsides and the thrill of their gold

when the wind blows through and god is finally known

it's where the bear hides when his heart is on fire

he burns up the loose brush but he can't catch all the liars

it's where I hide when my head is on fire

the prayers I write when the smoke gets in my eyes

you and I are stealing

everything

you and I are stealing

everything

let's hope the town forgives the thieves

if you're the callous line, your mother's the farmer's hand

if you're the ocean's smell, your sister is the wind

if I'm the sidewalk, my father is the curb

if I'm the rails, my brother is the yard

forget the front porch, and the ashtray on the rail

forget the fields, we are stronger than the soil

I filled the flask, I filled it for both of us

the body we killed is buried on the hillside

salt water and moonlight

glazed over with moonlight

let's hope the town forgives the thieves

off the coast - song (fa)

2010-02-17T16:12:00.000-08:00

cool down the beast
blow it away from me

i'm burning everything
a choir in a forest breeze

i know the drum in your chest
fields of dead let them rest
you swore that i would be blessed

hold the knife to my chest
or break the bottle unless
it fills to the crest

simple minds of cities
i wonder what you're doing here

your phone is off the railing
you haven't been awake for years

i'll be the bird in the cold
i'll fill my heart with old smoke
the best way to be alone

ride that barge off the coast
keep a gun in your coat
you are a ghost you are a ghost

but the blues is just a thug
and i talk as small as thelonious monk

jack daniels wearing a sundress
like a lover in a mining town

i've got fire to hold onto
i've got love to hold onto
i've got work to hold onto
i've got the ax to hold onto
i've got the rails to hold onto
i've got the hills to hold onto
i've got the ghosts to hold onto
i've got your hips to hold onto
i've got my hat to hold onto
i've got fire to hold onto

impetus (FA)

2010-02-14T17:36:00.001-08:00

this is the flower that drowned
persephone. a violent
beauty
a wisp of white neck
flesh asleep on lake of love
collar bone, flow
down
down the center
down
to the angel skin
pressed but quiet
on my shoulders
beating like slow wings

catalyst
spread like god or sweet heroine
the length of this undying winter

the bed never warm
without a pistol under the pillow

Dear Vincent (f.a. book response)

2010-02-10T18:51:00.000-08:00

A series of short poems written in the voice of Vincent van Gogh,

with quotes from the book "Dear Theo".

Old Man By The Fire (Worn Out)

Painted in 1881, staying on the Etten countryside with his parents.

“…an old, sick peasant sitting on a chair by the hearth with his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees.”

almost a ghost

stacked elbow on golden knee, cheek

in hand.

I have known this exhaustion

never in my rusty knees

but behind my eyes.

the kettle is boiling-

it takes him a while

to notice.

The old tower at Nuenen

Painted in Nuenen, 1884.

“That God of the clergymen, He is for me as dead as a doornail. But am I an atheist for all that? The clergymen consider me as such – be it so; but I love, and how could I feel love if I did not live, and if others did not live, and then, if we live, there is something mysterious in that. Now call that God, or human nature or whatever you like, but there is something which I cannot define systematically, though it is very much alive and very real, and see, that is God, or as good as God. To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, but a living one, who with irresistible force urges us towardaimer encore; that is my opinion.”

there’s a rufuge

my mother told me to look for

before I leave again

and I found it there

under the swollen sky

watching from the fields tended

from its secret eyes

I didn’t go inside

rather avoided its eyes

said a small prayer

for mother

and for theo

dear brother

Snowy Landscape With Arles in the Background

Painted in February 1888, Arles, having left his brother in Paris just a few days earlier.

“It seems to me at times that my blood is more or less actually beginning to think of circulating, which was not the case during the last days in Paris. Honestly, I could not have stood it much longer.”

the windows were graceful

the concrete was clean

but they say hell is made of chrome

I’ve known the city

it’s filled me

like a tired womb

after it cradles it must let go

into the soft I’ve been let go

cradle me quiet shades

of tall grass and snow

after I cradle I must let go

Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night

Painted in Arles, September, 1888.

“The problem of painting night scenes and effects on the spot and actually by night interests me enormously. This week I have done absolutely nothing but paint and sleep and have my meals. That means sittings of twelve hours at a stretch.”

this is where I came

to find

utopia

in splendid minds

thoughts like stars

but so far

still

only the sky

contains stars

I’ve found utopia

in the loneliest

of nights

The Starry Night

Painted in the hospital at St-Paul-de-Mausole, June 1989,

(a few months before his suicide).

“Things are going well with me. You will understand that after almost half a year now of absolute frugality in eating, drinking, smoking, with two-hour baths twice a week of late, it's evident that it should steady me a lot. So it's all going well, and as for the work, far from wearing me out, it occupies and distracts me - which I am in great need of.”

my mind is filled with silver

spider web dreams

I’m told it will pass soon enough

but it’s been this way for months

I see the stars everywhere

brother

and when I find sleep

it’s a circle wind of blue

this is work

the only solid line between

the silver and the blue

the only thing that makes me miss it all

bare hips of women

small sips of wine

your good handshake

your wife’s small neck

your voice

fair brother

and o god

o god

end.

the longhouse, 1998

2010-02-05T17:24:00.000-08:00

I've got to write of "indian wealth",
fill in all the blanks. There are
your screams of lines
and subtle burnings
then there are the rosaries
in your murdered choir,
a shelter I prayed in as the rain
played tin. My eyes were ravens then,
foggy feathers in your hands.

promise (FA)

2010-02-03T21:33:00.000-08:00

This I finished writing when sitting in Paul's Diner with a friend, waiting for an orange float. There were some ideas for the poem I found in my notebook, which I think I scribbled down mainly to keep myself from falling asleep on a bus. But this is how it looks now. The orange float was delicious.

a crystal white brick building
nondescript like cancer
smokers outside coughing kerosine

hide the summers, fill in
with graphite
tonight context is a shadow moon

he will never forget
to write you

even as the telephones erupt
in saxophone soma
and crawling alarm clocks
shout doom

It's only begun...

2010-01-30T03:56:00.000-08:00

Ethsmé (FA)

2010-01-27T20:04:00.000-08:00

there have been dozens

I've called Sarah Jane
each a lioness
with cloudy dirt caught
in her eyes
defacing mountains
breaking the teeth
in my small mouth

your hills are more wild
crests of calloused gold arrive
in the treelines
and when the winter plays
she spins her breath
like scores of wool
tight across your thigh

my mouth and eyes are closed
I've been bowing for five months

Ethsmé
all I could do was lie

your bed
of strong grass and wildflowers
won't be so quick
to the whisper of sparks
come this fire season

the old neighborhood

2010-01-22T23:55:00.000-08:00

on the sidewalk
the season swelling
steel toes cracking
those flammable leaves
thin Colt's face like a crow

he laughed as his hand
caught at my throat
and in that second
I was breathless as oil

Grandpa
your hands thick with veins
have hung low and ready
at your sides
since the time another boy
knocked the cigarette from your mouth
and you whispered to him
"I been saving that one for three months"

I felt your eyes then
watching diamondback black
maybe from the grass grown over
the front yard
all golden ghosts
or from the quiet windows of the trailer
parked down the road

Grandpa
you steadied my eyes
as Colt's hand let go
and breath filled my lungs
again

reflection #1 - hills (FA)

2010-01-20T21:50:00.000-08:00

During Jennifer Kingsley's lecture, I observed the way she keeps a lot of room in her creative process for externalization; knowing the environment she works best in, the ways she arranges thoughts… For her, creativity is an experience. I focus on the experience too. But the experiences that we go through are very different. Like Merce Cunningham, I'm "very comfortable with chaos, and play with it in all [my] work" (Tharp, Twyla ; The Creative Habit, pg 1). Inspiration comes to me chaotically, generally out of chaos, and the creative act occurs with a necessity to solidify that chaos.

So it isn't a case of trying to be creative in order to "increase [my] behavioral boundaries by being more flexible, fluent, elaborate, and original in their perceiving, feeling, intellecting, and responding" (Klein, Ronald D. ; An Inquiry into the Factors Related to Creativity, pg. 10). I simply get an impulse, and write a song. This idea of finding what it takes for me to be creative and isolating those things such as Klein does between Creative Behavior, Creative Environment, Creative Personality, and Creative Process; it terrifies me. It is just a classification to prelude the process. And for my own mind to work, the prelude is unnecessary, and sometimes harmful. What is there for me to give order to if there’s no chaos?

“Hills” was written in a corner of a crowded room, where I could barely hear my own voice. For me to describe how it all came together is truly impossible. I think that with the first impulse I get to write, whether it's a story, a song, or a poem, I am really just getting news that there's something in me, already complete and polished and ready to be shown. What I have to do is find it. That is the extent of my process.

fear has caught on fire (FA)

2010-01-20T00:29:00.000-08:00

the crow

braeburn

2010-01-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

I heard the sound of your voice
through the trees comin'
from far out in the shadow brush
the knit pines

strong boots heavy with mud
cigarette turnin slow into wind

this is dangerous
I whispered back
and stood the ax in the oak
the winter's so thick
it's hard to breathe
and I hate the way the porch light
flickers in the dark
dusk till dawn
stealin' the night
from my dreams

honey
you should know
when I get home
before I get the money
from the red birdhouse
before I punch Johnny in the mouth
for trying to kiss you

I'm gonna love you til our bodies
turn the kitchen tiles warm

I'm gonna love you where the night is full
and winter holds us in its arms

it tore me up (FA)

2010-01-13T17:51:00.000-08:00

This is a recording of a song I've been working on sporadically for months. I never stop working on songs, and seem to change them somehow every time I play them. However, this is the first time this song has been something I could let myself pretend is finished.

hills

Wide-Eyed Bambi (FA)

2010-01-05T16:39:00.000-08:00

I'm going to re-post something here, for the first time. It's not because this story relates to me in any way. But it does remind me almost exactly of a situation a friend of mine once recounted to me, and I think remembering it all is what led to his fit of anger that happened a couple minutes afterwards. Anyway, the reason I'm posting it is because I think it's a brilliant piece of writing. It's simple and concise but grittily reaches out to the realities of people right now, with their absolutely ridiculous, but still very real, problems. Somehow the story is graceful all the way through.

You’re not sure you belong here, but it’s better than Skype. You guys even fought about it, didn’t you? Well, tonight he’s going to go out and get drunk with the boys out of revenge. He’ll flirt, try too hard and fail. Finally, he’ll make out with that old stand-by of his, a girl that you both know, but he’ll feel bad while he does it and he’ll feel worse after he’s done. You won’t know a thing because you’ll be a wide-eyed Bambi in a party full of wolves. You’ll lose your phone. When you notice, you won’t care. You’ll walk around with folded hands. You’ll meet interesting people who have traveled. You’ll drink wine. You’ll smoke pot. You won’t kiss anyone, but you’ll cheat in your mind. Everyone will seem interesting, the music will seem so bright and “British”, and you’ll follow your handsome tour guide to the corner of a red leather couch and you’ll talk. He’ll be beautiful and older and he’ll say things in excited tones and he’ll touch your hands a lot, and he’ll lean in a lot, and finally he will try to kiss you but you’ll move away and say that you have a boyfriend. A boyfriend who is passed out next to a half-naked girl with his dried-up cum in her hair. The only reason he even went out tonight is because of you. An act of emotional rebellion. Because he couldn’t bear to know that you were going to this party by yourself while he’s 300 miles away, rotting in the little town that you both grew up in.

via Bronques.

diamondbacks

2009-12-31T20:01:00.000-08:00

wet with tears
rain
in slow eyes
impatient
tired
from heartbeat
solitude

you don't like
what you don't understand

but this is what I was made
from
gas stations
lit up bleeding into black
freeway evenings

constellations
become so small
when stars are traced through
to make you

your crisp laugh
like a ghost

though it's life
we've met

o god
your eyes
through a winter
stream of smoke

o god
your eyes

the second pack

2009-12-24T13:49:00.000-08:00

the birds blessing
in the night time
sleep barely
like i do

i'm not looking
too good
when my heart pours
out my toes
and my mouth
is a gambling hall

i should let you know

this isn't a man
you should be waiting for
when you've got breath
like wind held on call
and sing
so modestly

i could win a fight
i could drink it straight
i could spit and roll up my sleeves
call any soul a motherfucker

but i'll always shake
catch a small hurricane
in my eyelashes
when i see you
new

monday morning - six forty-four am

2009-12-23T12:03:00.000-08:00

when the water

dries
off the bathroom
floor
i will know
you're gone

soon soon soon soon soon

2009-12-15T20:39:00.000-08:00

here comes the sun again.

two new recordings

2009-12-12T00:20:00.000-08:00

1. at last

2. oceans

over

2009-12-11T01:16:00.000-08:00

you sing
bravery
my fingernails chewed
and eyes done with
i could starve you out
strong
mark me
but let
my words
breathe
on a banister
of smoke
we die
in our shoes
every night

the shape of absence

2009-12-02T03:17:00.000-08:00

there are still traces of your smell
trapped beneath my sheets
but it's your breath that's missing
on my bare shoulder blades
when i sing songs of war and defeat.

oh mah gawd.

2009-11-30T03:04:00.000-08:00

This night was a good night.

(photo by Anushka)

how to not write down thoughts

2009-11-28T14:11:00.000-08:00

this is old.

forget your self
and echoes of it in others

let beauty be untouched
and lonely
neglected
like hills that have never
been painted

and a girl like sarah jane
somehow never loved
with words or hands
or bare skin sinking
into deep rich blue

where do hearts beat
without her?

trade

2009-11-27T03:41:00.000-08:00

the last time i saw you
your face was gold
in the apartment building
parking lot porch light.
I could see your stubble
and old scars
from last decade's fight.

they say you can tell a man's story
just by following his scars
if that's so mine's a pretty short one
about skateboard parks and school yards.

but the ones that hide behind my quiet
raincloud curtain eyes
tell a greater tale
of migraine dreams and cigarette lies.

in a box
i still have the valentine you gave me
when i was a little kid.
when you made it
i think you were trying to fight ugliness
with a cigarette in your mouth
and ball point pen in your hand
wiping the ashes off the paper as they land
seeing your ink run black into the valentine
river of red
like blues make up the man.

we both stood outside your door
under the secret-moon sky
shifting our weight
with a hate for hellos and goodbyes.
any car on the road
was parked like a tombstone
in quiet after midnight prose.
i didn't have a lot to say
though i spent every minute
we were apart
hoping to god you would be
okay.

the ice sculpture

2009-11-23T21:08:00.000-08:00

you can download a play I recently wrote right here.

louise (song)

2009-11-21T03:49:00.000-08:00

i'm breaking parole just to be
in the cold of that stream
dip your ankles in the cold
and send off some leaves

i left louise on the hill
and forgot how i could love her still
now i live alone
and don't pay my telephone bills

louise i set my arms on fire
to wave you home again
but the flames became a wildfire
and nobody could catch a train

i left louise on the hill
and forgot how i could love her still
i could still smell her when i
started working at the oil well

and i'm just trying to say goodbye
but i don't know how
the river runs in my blood
oh but i don't know how

i'm going down to that river
and i'm going to drink my fill
i left louise on the hill
and forgot how i could love her still

i left louise on the hill
and forgot how i could love her still
i'm going down to that river
and i'm gonna drink my fill

love

2009-11-17T00:41:00.000-08:00

he draws you naked
on the stairs

a weather beating
sipping up
the cigarette smoke

your skin takes dust
off the wood

tremble in stillness

think of the wild lines
under his eyes
roadmaps hot with crying

over your color
a railway in back hills
at sunrise

plate of hashbrowns

2009-11-16T23:50:00.000-08:00

DEE: 22-year-old waitress.
CLYDE: 25-year-old drifter.

LOCATION: A truck-stop café in the middle of the night.

DEE
Hey there, darlin'. Get you a coffee?

CLYDE
(struck by her beauty) Um... Yeah... Yeah, and I'll get a plate of hash browns as well.

DEE
(yells to counter) Order of hash browns! (to Clyde) Alright. Anything else?

CLYDE
No, not for me. Say, where’re you from, anyway? I been sleepin' on that bus out there all night… Don't know where the hell I am or what I'm close to --

DEE
Yeah, there's a little town just up the highway a bit, that's where I'm from.

CLYDE
Hm. What's it like there? You like it there?

DEE
I don't mind it. Grew up there.

CLYDE
Grew up there. Family there?

DEE
Yeah.

CLYDE
You lookin' after your mother up there?

DEE
Yeah...

CLYDE
She sick?

DEE
Just old.

CLYDE
Just old. Ever gotten outta there, Dee?

DEE
Um... Been to Seattle one time. I got cousins there. You askin' a lot of questions.

CLYDE
(laughs) You're an interestin' girl, Dee.

DEE
We'll see. Where you from anyway?

CLYDE
Well uh... I don't know really anymore, know what I mean?

DEE
I think I might. You happen to still know where you're goin'?

CLYDE
(laughs) Just so happens. I'm headin' North to my mother's, stay there a few nights. I think then I'll be makin' my way West.

DEE
What’s west?

CLYDE
Friend’s got a cabin. Up in some woods.

DEE
(nodding) You lookin’ for God?...

CLYDE
(beat) Got a fella, Dee?

DEE
(ignores question)…Or salvation of some kind?

CLYDE
Got a fella at home?

DEE
I'll be right back with your hashbrowns.

tideline

2009-11-13T15:34:00.000-08:00

run tideline
down the shore
sign of smoke
caught in dream
chanting
through night
into afternoons

where it breaks
write
it bleeds on
feel night now always
so much closer
to hiding us

books taking to dust
cards on the table
she's gone
remember? just
dreams now
so
bleed on
just dreams
now

zeballos

2009-11-10T20:39:00.000-08:00

remember that laugh
we had
outside the gas station
near the ocean?
i was just thinking
about if i will ever be
so full of life
again.

Dee

2009-11-02T15:09:00.000-08:00

Alright so it had been a long bus ride so far, and we were takin’ this pit stop at a roadside café in the middle of noplace; just road and the night. That’s all yer sight disappeared into anyway. I got off the bus and stepped into the café. Summa the guys from the bus were standin’ at the counter askin’ for quick cups of coffee, then waitin’ all anxious-like, you know, so they could get back to their stuffy seats on the Greyhound.

Me, I grabbed a booth by the front windows. I took my pen outta my shirt pocket and started scribblin’, sketchin’ on a napkin. Then the waitress came and when I looked at her… oh! Oh! Oh! I mean, I never seen eyes like that. You know, I seen eyes blue as the blues an’ green as a fisherman’s salty waters, but these eyes, man, they weren’t just what you’d call “pretty”, see. They were the kind that would search through the air and catch you lookin’ an’ lock you in. Couldn’t look away, you know? They were just the color of the forest floor in the back woods of my sweet mother’s old cottage up north. Wet earth like, spotted with the colors of leaves that fall in the shivery autumn days. She had long brown hair done up in a pony tail, and her nametag said Dee. I ordered a coffee an’ some hashbrowns an’ I asked where she was from. She told me about her hometown, some place not far away, just down the highway from the café. She asked where I was travelin’ to, and where from, an’ I told her… We had us some conversation, me bein’ the only customer sittin’ down in the place. She went back behind the counter to put in my order an’ I went back to my scribblin’. Lookin’ out the window, all I could see was the Greyhound bus with it’s headlights still on, the beams pointed north up the highway, moths swimmin’ round in ‘em, and fadin’, gradual, into total black.

I was the only one still in the restaurant. My hashbrowns came and I ate ‘em real quick, writin’ a poem for this waitress at the same time. In the poem I ask her to come away with me, that she has the option, if she were just up for takin’ it, of getting’ on that bus with me and headin’ who-cares-where. Woods. Woods and love and days filled with both, know what I mean? When she came back with my bill I looked at the pink clock on the wall. The bus would be leavin’ in three minutes. I slid the napkin with the poem on it towards her. She saw what it was and giggled with cute laugh, sayin’ “is this a poem?” like if she were a guitar someone had just strummed a chord on her perfect. She slid into the booth across from me to read it. She was smilin’ wide, but told me she would lose everythin’ goin’ for her in town if she left. I didn’t mind. I mean, some people just aren’t in the place to pick up an’ leave; it’s easy to get like that; I understand. I don’t even know how serious I was when I offered anyway, you know, so I just smiled and I shrugged. But then I felt her put her foot lightly on mine under the table. She looked over at the counter real quick and whispered, “I’m off at three”. Then she got up and went back to the counter. I saw her slide the napkin into her apron’s pocket.

Three o’clock am was in an hour. I walked out of the café an’ got back on the bus. Everybody all down the rows were asleep so I quietly grabbed my rucksack off the floor and got off again just as the engine was startin’ up. I sat down on the front steps of the café there, smokin’, lookin’ at the sky. It was such a beautiful night, with tons of stars, just tons, and a sweet moon that gave me a shadow. At three, as promised, Dee came bouncin’ out the door, still in her uniform – that yellow shirt an’ skirt , white apron ‘round the waist. We walked a little while down the highway, just outta sight of the café and all. Then she took my hand and we stepped careful down this ravine on the side of the road, and the clear sky disappeared over top of us as we got into the bush, dark woods all around. As soon as we reached the bottom of the hill, I could hear a shallow steam we came to the edge of, where we stopped. And that’s where she and I made love on a bed of our clothes, by the creekbed glowin’ alive with moonlight, in the thick summer air that smelled of wildflowers and pine.

Back at the café, we stood out front in the parkin’ lot, waitin’ on her friend’s shift to be over, so she could get a ride back into town. Under the lit up sign readin’ CAFÉ, she had arms around my neck and were were slow dancin’ through the little time we had, maybe thinkin’ we could really slow time itself. She whispered in my ear then, just as her friend came out the café door and unlocked her car, that her real name was actually Darla, sayin’, “Dee’s just what’s on my nametag” you know, in sexy whisper. Then she kissed my cheek and neck and got in her friend’s car and they pulled outta the parkin’ lot, disappearin’ into that nighttime just as the bus had, leavin’ me lonely now standin’ by the café sign. I figured soon the sun would be up, and the traffic would be awake again. So I moved my rucksack to the side of the road, and sat on it smokin’ waitin’ for my first chance to hitch. I was in no hurry anymore. It came to me that this driftin’ is all there is. And that it is just what it is an’ it is nothin’ else. An’ I guess that’s about how I got in this here car with you folks. I never stopped since that night.

unkept

2009-10-28T16:47:00.000-07:00

break parole just to be
in the cold wishes of that stream
dipping the firs
sending off leaves

goodbye

i left louise on the hill
and forgot how i could
love her and walked
to an oil well to

set my arms on fire
wave you home-
ward you were unsure
about where to roam

but i know you've heard the river
by now

your thighs are bare
socks rolled down too
water
kiss you
like i do

i've heard of the panthers
making love
on the roots of trees
worries caught in web up
there
in the netted thatched needles
(the sun dives through)

this is what's left of me
you're with what's left of me