She likes boys!
20090414
20090413
.chasing.street.lights.
wet roads
and slick tires
make stopping that much harder
but at
1:30
in the morning
there's not much reason to
and slick tires
make stopping that much harder
but at
1:30
in the morning
there's not much reason to
20090412
.death.under.the.lights.
and when you
are old enough, you
can play at those
old characters, one
tragic death after
another
when the director finally yells
"Cut!"
you'll sit up miraculously
healed, and pushing aside
hospital sheets, no longer
heavy like stones
are old enough, you
can play at those
old characters, one
tragic death after
another
when the director finally yells
"Cut!"
you'll sit up miraculously
healed, and pushing aside
hospital sheets, no longer
heavy like stones
meadow
the fog rising from the tall grass
is not like the cold breath of god.
and the morning sun behind it
is just yellow yolk. no
romance in how
it feathers the clouds above me.
but i do remember this:
if i love you is not enough then
nothing is.
is not like the cold breath of god.
and the morning sun behind it
is just yellow yolk. no
romance in how
it feathers the clouds above me.
but i do remember this:
if i love you is not enough then
nothing is.
20090411
.fingertips.
these days, i'm never sure whether my fingertips are black from dirty guitar strings, or bike grease
and whether a new hole will wear through my jeans in the knees or seat
whether my scabs will scar, like ghosts of an injury
the signs of usage creeping over my body
when i'm broken, i can be discarded
like an old chain holding onto its links
with broken fingers
and whether a new hole will wear through my jeans in the knees or seat
whether my scabs will scar, like ghosts of an injury
the signs of usage creeping over my body
when i'm broken, i can be discarded
like an old chain holding onto its links
with broken fingers
mansfield
not as entertaining as the name would imply, a field
of men. or a man's field
filled with what, tomato vines? and maybe
the men run barefoot through
the fruit. they make
paste.
of men. or a man's field
filled with what, tomato vines? and maybe
the men run barefoot through
the fruit. they make
paste.
20090410
.virtual.memory.
With regards to first shows always kind of sucking, I would like to say, Thank god for the computer.
April
I've spent all my money--is it
the end of the month yet? I never leave
the house anymore. All I need is the dust
caught in sunlight, morning
pouring through the blinds.
In the alley, a dog barks at a man
who yells to the trees.
What were we doing here anyway
other than getting by?
the end of the month yet? I never leave
the house anymore. All I need is the dust
caught in sunlight, morning
pouring through the blinds.
In the alley, a dog barks at a man
who yells to the trees.
What were we doing here anyway
other than getting by?
20090409
.ivy.over.brick.
Remember that time when you were feeling lonely and out of it? First year at grad school, I think it was, because we were all still around, rooted to the porch and doomed to be townies, but you were making something of yourself. We were pretty proud of you.
But you still called one of us every day, and talked about how you were stranded in assfuck nowhere, and we told you to be quiet, because you were living in downtown Montreal, and that was a hell of a lot more interesting than our one-road town. We missed you as much as you missed us.
So I hope you remember that tape we made for you that one time: the one where we played an old record of 80's one hit wonders in the living room. You know, all those bands that eschewed "The" and any more than one word for a name. And they must have known something, naming themselves after all sorts of geographical locations: Africa, Kansas, Boston. Hell, there was even Journey. You can't top the epicness of that era, and maybe that cheesiness is what made it so appropriate after we had our cheese and wine dinner without you.
And if you dig that tape up, I think we'd all like to listen to it when you come back for the holiday, because we were all too drunk to remember us gathered around the living room on rugs and chairs, squeezing cats and all of us singing at the top of our lungs to those brilliant retarded songs. We knew all the words, and every last sax solo, and lord knows our voices probably ended up drowning out the actual record.
Yeah, we should definitely listen to it when you come back, before newer technology creeps by us like ivy over brick. Before we lose the ability to hear ourselves at all.
But you still called one of us every day, and talked about how you were stranded in assfuck nowhere, and we told you to be quiet, because you were living in downtown Montreal, and that was a hell of a lot more interesting than our one-road town. We missed you as much as you missed us.
So I hope you remember that tape we made for you that one time: the one where we played an old record of 80's one hit wonders in the living room. You know, all those bands that eschewed "The" and any more than one word for a name. And they must have known something, naming themselves after all sorts of geographical locations: Africa, Kansas, Boston. Hell, there was even Journey. You can't top the epicness of that era, and maybe that cheesiness is what made it so appropriate after we had our cheese and wine dinner without you.
And if you dig that tape up, I think we'd all like to listen to it when you come back for the holiday, because we were all too drunk to remember us gathered around the living room on rugs and chairs, squeezing cats and all of us singing at the top of our lungs to those brilliant retarded songs. We knew all the words, and every last sax solo, and lord knows our voices probably ended up drowning out the actual record.
Yeah, we should definitely listen to it when you come back, before newer technology creeps by us like ivy over brick. Before we lose the ability to hear ourselves at all.
Scavenger
There is no other way to say it-- I'll
have to be quiet now.
How we lived like wolves, miserable
for each other, desperate.
Where does love go when finished?
Under the moonlight, half-starved--
you were enough for you.
I'll scavenge for your scent
on my pillow, I'll take
what I can get.
have to be quiet now.
How we lived like wolves, miserable
for each other, desperate.
Where does love go when finished?
Under the moonlight, half-starved--
you were enough for you.
I'll scavenge for your scent
on my pillow, I'll take
what I can get.
20090408
.backyard.treasure.
It seems silly to even talk about it, but I have the recurring story of how my uncle Thomas decided to go his grave early, following the death of my Aunt Tilda. It wasn't as if he had a death wish. No, no, he just had it up to here with life above the ground, as if the sun and stars were the hands of a clock ticking away without a snooze button.
Uncle Thomas had been a carpenter by trade, so he spent a month or so designing his coffin, embellishing it with the standard decor one saw in his living room. And in fact, there were several items that were from his living room: sawed off lamps, his small television, the hideous upholstery that Aunt Tilda had knitted one Easter.
There was a huge yard sale after Uncle Thomas had finished his coffin, wherein he sold the rest of the house and its belongings. Remember how I said one day I'll be able to carry everything I own on my back and move from town to town without a worry? he said to us. Well, it's like that, only I don't want to move anywhere anymore, so I'm just making my house as small as I can make it. Which, in the end, turned out to be the size of small camper. What the hell is this, Tom? A horse coffin? my dad joked. But in his voice, I noticed a roughness like the unsanded wood that Uncle Thomas had been working with. Nothing a few cans of beer wouldn't polish off over a barbecue.
And that was my Uncle Thomas's funeral: nothing more than a large family barbecue, with his friends showing up for the free hot dogs and beer. Us kids knew no better, and ran around poking each other with sticks and climbing trees like we always did, until Uncle Thomas shot off some fireworks to get our attention. Hear hear! Let's bow our heads! And nobody did, of course, but the parents and grown ups all went around and said a little phrase about their favourite memories of Uncle Thomas, which I suspect was just to humour him. My mom wanted nothing to do with it, though, and told him flat out that he was going to be back inside in a week to watch the Lakers game with some Cheetos.
So she wasn't even outside when my Uncle Thomas saluted and climbed into his giant coffin, which he referred to as his Viking longboat, which he had somehow lowered into a giant hole he had dug out in his backyard. My dad joked about the duck and cover drills from their childhood, and that his coffin looked more like a fallout shelter. Do you really want to do this Tom?
But my Uncle Thomas was dead already, so he didn't answer. He just climbed down into his coffin, and expected us to pile the dirt on after him. None of the grown ups wanted to do it, so us kids made a game of it, pretending we were pirates hiding treasure, or squirrels storing away food, or anti-paleontologists, protecting the sacred remains of the long lost dinosaurs.
Anyway, that was the last time we really saw my Uncle Thomas. We talked to him sometimes when we were in his backyard (it was part of a short cut to the creek) and stopped for a while, and one time, we even managed to slide a can of beer to him from above ground, but that hole has long since filled up with dirt.
After a while, we stopped hearing from him altogether. Maybe he finally died down there. Either way, he left the world and all of us long ago, and sometimes, I can't blame him. I think about looking for that treasure map once in a while, and digging my way out of this life.
Uncle Thomas had been a carpenter by trade, so he spent a month or so designing his coffin, embellishing it with the standard decor one saw in his living room. And in fact, there were several items that were from his living room: sawed off lamps, his small television, the hideous upholstery that Aunt Tilda had knitted one Easter.
There was a huge yard sale after Uncle Thomas had finished his coffin, wherein he sold the rest of the house and its belongings. Remember how I said one day I'll be able to carry everything I own on my back and move from town to town without a worry? he said to us. Well, it's like that, only I don't want to move anywhere anymore, so I'm just making my house as small as I can make it. Which, in the end, turned out to be the size of small camper. What the hell is this, Tom? A horse coffin? my dad joked. But in his voice, I noticed a roughness like the unsanded wood that Uncle Thomas had been working with. Nothing a few cans of beer wouldn't polish off over a barbecue.
And that was my Uncle Thomas's funeral: nothing more than a large family barbecue, with his friends showing up for the free hot dogs and beer. Us kids knew no better, and ran around poking each other with sticks and climbing trees like we always did, until Uncle Thomas shot off some fireworks to get our attention. Hear hear! Let's bow our heads! And nobody did, of course, but the parents and grown ups all went around and said a little phrase about their favourite memories of Uncle Thomas, which I suspect was just to humour him. My mom wanted nothing to do with it, though, and told him flat out that he was going to be back inside in a week to watch the Lakers game with some Cheetos.
So she wasn't even outside when my Uncle Thomas saluted and climbed into his giant coffin, which he referred to as his Viking longboat, which he had somehow lowered into a giant hole he had dug out in his backyard. My dad joked about the duck and cover drills from their childhood, and that his coffin looked more like a fallout shelter. Do you really want to do this Tom?
But my Uncle Thomas was dead already, so he didn't answer. He just climbed down into his coffin, and expected us to pile the dirt on after him. None of the grown ups wanted to do it, so us kids made a game of it, pretending we were pirates hiding treasure, or squirrels storing away food, or anti-paleontologists, protecting the sacred remains of the long lost dinosaurs.
Anyway, that was the last time we really saw my Uncle Thomas. We talked to him sometimes when we were in his backyard (it was part of a short cut to the creek) and stopped for a while, and one time, we even managed to slide a can of beer to him from above ground, but that hole has long since filled up with dirt.
After a while, we stopped hearing from him altogether. Maybe he finally died down there. Either way, he left the world and all of us long ago, and sometimes, I can't blame him. I think about looking for that treasure map once in a while, and digging my way out of this life.
The Evening I Nearly Forgot You
I turned off the light and listened to the dogs
downstairs, their chorus of yowls.
I was getting used to being alone, reacquainting
myself with the sounds the house makes
when you're not here. The furnace kicks on, angry.
The neighbor's heavy footsteps on the other side
of a too-thin wall. I wanted these sounds
for company. I wanted my loneliness
to fill me entirely, make me
another woman, someone you couldn't love
not even if you tried.
downstairs, their chorus of yowls.
I was getting used to being alone, reacquainting
myself with the sounds the house makes
when you're not here. The furnace kicks on, angry.
The neighbor's heavy footsteps on the other side
of a too-thin wall. I wanted these sounds
for company. I wanted my loneliness
to fill me entirely, make me
another woman, someone you couldn't love
not even if you tried.
20090407
.bristly.
I've been trying to learn a Thao song that involves hitting the strings with a toothbrush.
That is all.
That is all.
20090406
nothing good
I'm in one of those moods when I think everything I write has been crap & will always be crap. How to shake it, how to shake it?
.moped.
Music always seems to find you at the perfect time. Or is it that you happen to latch onto whatever it is that seeps into your earholes at that moment? Either way, it always feels a little bit like predestination, even for the most non-fatalistic cynic of us.
So the rejections start rolling in, and I realize that my escape to Canada is being delayed by at least a year: a year to replan, rescheme, and work my ass off in a graduate program to reapply for the Ph.D program.
Orchestrating the mad dash to figure out how I'm going to afford Chicago next year is Thao Nguyen's solo album, which I finally managed to get a hold of, and the last track, Moped, is definitely a winner!
So is the rest of the album of course.
And hey, whatever, Chicago, and the University of Chicago for that matter, are by no means terrible places to be.
A year to plan.
A year to scheme.
A year to crank out a thesis.
So the rejections start rolling in, and I realize that my escape to Canada is being delayed by at least a year: a year to replan, rescheme, and work my ass off in a graduate program to reapply for the Ph.D program.
Orchestrating the mad dash to figure out how I'm going to afford Chicago next year is Thao Nguyen's solo album, which I finally managed to get a hold of, and the last track, Moped, is definitely a winner!
So is the rest of the album of course.
And hey, whatever, Chicago, and the University of Chicago for that matter, are by no means terrible places to be.
A year to plan.
A year to scheme.
A year to crank out a thesis.
20090405
.a.flock.of.aprils.
Has it occurred to you to check those headlines from April Fool's? Double check? Suppose that among the batch, there were a real one, hiding like a wolf.
It is the story that managed to push itself out of the membrane of impossibility into reality.
The ultimate joke is in its sincerity.
Nothing's funnier than confessionals.
It is the story that managed to push itself out of the membrane of impossibility into reality.
The ultimate joke is in its sincerity.
Nothing's funnier than confessionals.
grooming
the children study you, the morning ritual
of putting on your face. notice
the flesh-tone flecks falling on your robe
when dabbing the nose. see
your British plainness subside to cat-eyed
valentine. they learn:
to lure a man means
claret lips.
of putting on your face. notice
the flesh-tone flecks falling on your robe
when dabbing the nose. see
your British plainness subside to cat-eyed
valentine. they learn:
to lure a man means
claret lips.
20090404
.before.semaphore.
Not everyone speaks semaphore, you know. And even fewer people knew and understood it before it was invented.
Two wooden crates set course, sailing off over the vast expanse of the Atlantic's belly, which always rumbles its malcontents deep below. Two buckets of hopeful eyes and restless hands arm in arm across the ocean blue. The year is something or other and two.
Five months to live as a small island, and the entire time, we were staring across the water at our brethren, sloshing ahead just further than we can throw our voices, which were plucked up by seagulls and whisked away to intricate migration patterns, weaving across the planet like lace.
Oh, we tried messages in bottles, but they had a habit of falling quite short of their intended targets. Come to think of it, we fancied afterwards that we had invented the whole notion of setting messages afloat in bottles.
And the one time my brother managed to fling his bottle clear across the gap and over the rail of our kindred ship, it crashed down not on the deck, but rather on the crown of the Gypsy's skull. By all means we were surprised it didn't knock him unconscious, but instead, we watched as he flew into a frenzy, setting countless exotic curses aflight on the wings of the gulls before he finally wagged the bottle in his hand and broke it against the rail and discarded the remains into the sea.
The last time we flung a bottle off our decks was not even to send message, believe it or not. Rather, the ship priest had been growing steadily more restless with each passing days, and had taken by the second week aboard to patrolling where he could, chastising everyone on their vices. As ship chaperone, he was notorious for scolding the children, interrupted intermittently only by his pauses to vomit over the side of the ship.
Halfway into our trip, when we crossed the line between departure and arrival, the priest finally went mad and poked holes in all the barrels of grog we had underneath. He was promptly chased out of the galleys by the furious cooks, but not before he had grabbed hold of one of the captain's private wine selections.
He emerged on the poop deck brandishing the bottle like a demon yelling at the top of his lungs about the sins of alcohol, which we inferred to mean the act of wielding a fine wine rather than sipping it over salted fish and biscuits. As the cook emerged behind him with a cleaver, his face as red as the wine in the priest's hands, the priest yelped and ran over to the side rail and flung the bottle as best as he could at the curious faces aboard our sister ship.
The bottle didn't make it even halfway, of course, and the priest was himself half over the side rail when he was gently bumped from behind by a young girl who had her doll taken away from her three days ago and flung over the side of the ship by the mad priest, who had then lashed her viciously for carrying pagan idols around so brazenly.
We looked at each other and remarked at how clumsy the priest was to have tripped over his robes as such.
After the whole incident, the captain ordered a meeting with the entire crew and passenger constituency of the ship and told us that was the end of flinging bottles overboard for whatever reason.
So for the second half of our voyage, as we drifted closer towards arrival, we simply sat on the deck with our legs passing through the side rail and stared across the gap towards our friends and family aboard their parallel journeys. We waved once in a while, and if the ships drifted close enough to each other, we could make out smiles.
We tried signing with our hands during those moments.
Julie had her baby? Oh my!
George secretly stockpiling salted herring? No!
The first mate was caught with Walter's wife? You don't say!
Julie's baby died and was thrown overboard? That's too bad.
But really, we had no idea, and those were only our best guesses at what was happening aboard their ship. I suspect that we were really just trying to understand our own ship's madness, in all its ribaldry and rancour, its miseries and majesties. We could only expect that they were experiencing it all the same, but we could never know.
So we just swung our legs, let the briny sea spray cool the space between our toes, and stared across the water at the other ship, or the horizon, or the stars; and should any of them drift close enough, we would smile and wave.
Two wooden crates set course, sailing off over the vast expanse of the Atlantic's belly, which always rumbles its malcontents deep below. Two buckets of hopeful eyes and restless hands arm in arm across the ocean blue. The year is something or other and two.
Five months to live as a small island, and the entire time, we were staring across the water at our brethren, sloshing ahead just further than we can throw our voices, which were plucked up by seagulls and whisked away to intricate migration patterns, weaving across the planet like lace.
Oh, we tried messages in bottles, but they had a habit of falling quite short of their intended targets. Come to think of it, we fancied afterwards that we had invented the whole notion of setting messages afloat in bottles.
And the one time my brother managed to fling his bottle clear across the gap and over the rail of our kindred ship, it crashed down not on the deck, but rather on the crown of the Gypsy's skull. By all means we were surprised it didn't knock him unconscious, but instead, we watched as he flew into a frenzy, setting countless exotic curses aflight on the wings of the gulls before he finally wagged the bottle in his hand and broke it against the rail and discarded the remains into the sea.
The last time we flung a bottle off our decks was not even to send message, believe it or not. Rather, the ship priest had been growing steadily more restless with each passing days, and had taken by the second week aboard to patrolling where he could, chastising everyone on their vices. As ship chaperone, he was notorious for scolding the children, interrupted intermittently only by his pauses to vomit over the side of the ship.
Halfway into our trip, when we crossed the line between departure and arrival, the priest finally went mad and poked holes in all the barrels of grog we had underneath. He was promptly chased out of the galleys by the furious cooks, but not before he had grabbed hold of one of the captain's private wine selections.
He emerged on the poop deck brandishing the bottle like a demon yelling at the top of his lungs about the sins of alcohol, which we inferred to mean the act of wielding a fine wine rather than sipping it over salted fish and biscuits. As the cook emerged behind him with a cleaver, his face as red as the wine in the priest's hands, the priest yelped and ran over to the side rail and flung the bottle as best as he could at the curious faces aboard our sister ship.
The bottle didn't make it even halfway, of course, and the priest was himself half over the side rail when he was gently bumped from behind by a young girl who had her doll taken away from her three days ago and flung over the side of the ship by the mad priest, who had then lashed her viciously for carrying pagan idols around so brazenly.
We looked at each other and remarked at how clumsy the priest was to have tripped over his robes as such.
After the whole incident, the captain ordered a meeting with the entire crew and passenger constituency of the ship and told us that was the end of flinging bottles overboard for whatever reason.
So for the second half of our voyage, as we drifted closer towards arrival, we simply sat on the deck with our legs passing through the side rail and stared across the gap towards our friends and family aboard their parallel journeys. We waved once in a while, and if the ships drifted close enough to each other, we could make out smiles.
We tried signing with our hands during those moments.
Julie had her baby? Oh my!
George secretly stockpiling salted herring? No!
The first mate was caught with Walter's wife? You don't say!
Julie's baby died and was thrown overboard? That's too bad.
But really, we had no idea, and those were only our best guesses at what was happening aboard their ship. I suspect that we were really just trying to understand our own ship's madness, in all its ribaldry and rancour, its miseries and majesties. We could only expect that they were experiencing it all the same, but we could never know.
So we just swung our legs, let the briny sea spray cool the space between our toes, and stared across the water at the other ship, or the horizon, or the stars; and should any of them drift close enough, we would smile and wave.
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