'nother

Putting the hat on
the mask down
the drag on
the weight of it drowning
over-cusped with chatty selves
claim king-like
I discovered
and
couldn't have guessed at the dawn
but did not blink
at it's gone.


My gastrointestinal system is SO out of whack this week. Fifth day of some kind of tummy ache. Feeling like a grumpy kid. I wrote this while eating Pho last night. I got temporarily blissed out by the comforting nature of the soup, and later cursed the amount of which I ate, which ultimately threw me into today's midriff strife. Sob. Must recover for the dyke march tmrw!

New pohem. It's been a minute. Haven't felt very still or wordy since I moved here..but it's bubbling forth,  just as I knew it would.

Tonight's insomnia:

chewed up electrical wires

keeping up the control center

sugar lined and weaning.

Cold feet finding no body

or end of the bed

to be like teeth in.

Scattered new ones to give waves to

but hardly enough background hands

for my rhythmed mouth to eat from.

Cup the towel round the spill;

a fan of minimal cleanup,

this stepped-on peach,

this unruly plum.

Kay Ryan

Finding a new poet you relate to/like is equivocal to the joy that comes with eating ice cream for the very first time.

I have discovered Kay Ryan and it is so delicious.

The Best of It

However carved up

or pared down we get,

we keep on making

the best of it as though

it doesn't matter that

our acre's down to

a square foot. As

though our garden

could be one bean

and we'd rejoice if

it flourishes, as

though one bean

could nourish us.

Mimo the cat writes poetry too

coming into my room from the kitchen, carrying a bowl of my morning yogurt, I was startled to find a lone kitten, sitting on my keyboard, gazing into the sunny out of doors, her butt writing unintentional poetry. This is what she wrote:

i999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999

99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999o 0p--------------------------------------------uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurx

44 4 yu7

it's....I just...I mean...wow. I've never reached those cavernous depths, but I've felt them. Thanks for writing what I could not express, Mimo.

ants all over

This morning, waking up in my new space in Oakland, I felt the potential for a good day right away; Rachel and I were still horizontal and she pointed out my new window and said; "look at that patch of blue". I did look, because I couldn't resist the idea of a blue sky after a few days of temperamental clouds unwilling to get out of the way of the sun, the air, the spaceward expanses, etc.

And after we had looked out at it and felt it's influence for a few moments, and then after she rolled out of bed and got ready to go to class, I panicked. I laid still for a few minutes and before I knew what was happening, I felt the woosh of a metal grate slamming shut on my mood potential for the day. There was no real reason for this; yet there were plenty of reasons for this, and they were getting in, breaking into my head, stripping me of ease. Over the past few years one of the things that has been hardest for my human body to come to grips with is an undeniable truth; I have acquired the capacity for an unhealthy overabundance of anxiety.

Inwardly, at any moment, I am worried about something. And more often then not, it isn't the kind of worry that I felt as a child or the kind of worry my mom or peers seem to experience. it doesn't really ever go away; it turns. It is linked, at all time, to all the other potential thoughts about all the things that could go wrong/are wrong. I can't stand existing in this peripheral experience. When it is activated, I feel purposefully excluded from my nature by a part of me that is going for isolation, disconnect, scarcity, loneliness, self-righteousness.

I had to talk myself down this morning. I imagine sometimes that this elevated state of panic is a tree that I get climb up somehow, and when I look back down, the trunk is devoid of knobs, holes and branches, and trying to get down is too much to think about. I have to continuously believe that I am doing an okay job and I can get down if I want to.

And the point of this scrawl is:

I have a small yet thriving ant population in my new room, and to be more specific, on my desk. So when I am looking at all of the jobs on craigslist this morning, mad at myself for trying to find SOMETHING, ANYTHING and not THE thing that I want, and yaddayaddayaddastressstress- and I look to see these ants ascending and descending my things...my books and my hands like there is nothing to it and I see them as little heroes. I became completely motivated by their focus on what's (literally) in front of their noses (someone draw me an ant nose please). That ant there--the one flitting across my notebook is uninfluenced by what it already climbed over and doesn't have the foresight to process the next thing up ahead because damnit, it's busy climbing this one.

I want to foster the ant perspective- unafraid to be engrossed in what's present and to be (rationally) unafraid of things beyond that. My face grows red with the forcefulness of my inability to deal with what may happen. Which is a major motif in my life currently. I just landed in a new town, filled with some people I do know, but faced with the task of carving myself out in a new relief. I think it''s time to come down from the tree and be caught, preferably by myself, with some help, from my friends? (and licensed therapists) (I find vague statements masquerading as main points is a healthy way to end the beginning of a conversation with myself.)

Well, okay, with that being said, here's to taking showers and putting a pair of wheels between your legs- I'm off to do what I do best in Oakland so far- pedaling the pavement and handing out resumes, talking in potentialities. HIRE ME <3

and then.

March 10th (for anna)

ode to the thing on my neck

What are you anyway?

You aren't even fun

my mind spirals into

THE REALM OF UNKNOWN OUTCOMES

just because your origins are mysterious

Ah, well

slopping this nonsense together

is making this

homo-hypo-chondro

ease up.

third time a charm

March 9th

same clearing every morning

stability for my senselessness

I've asked this manzanita to be my girlfriend

she keeps insisting,

"No, no, no

shoo, shoo, shoo,

get out of here, twerp."

C'mon, I'm serious.

the residue..

Posting the second installment a little late:

This is poem number two from my week-long-write-on-a-walk-a-thon.

March 8th

The unmistakable clank of metal

in a place of wood

gives me shivers, steaming

is it me that's the sound

of out-of-place or what?

These forest places suck out human context

I spit every foot or so

to assert my right to be here

My DNA seeping up thru ancient channels

still willing to share spaces

with foolish stubborn species.

from the depths of infinite trees, I give you...

FRIGHTENING POETRY.

Well, you decide.

So it's my third to last day living in Annapolis, California, which, by the way, is not a town, more of a gathering of under one hundred houses positioned higgldy-piggldy all over northern Sonoma County, all up in these redwood trees (and cypruss and pine and manzanita and madrone: so, only trees that stay green forever). The trailer which I occupy is on the land of ones Karl and Melinda, a nice pair of humans from the bay area who moved up here ten years ago to make their own idea of heaven. Off the grid, lots of quiet, or rainy sounds, no cars, eerie and lovely after spending so many years amoungst many forms of bustle.

I like it here, I've gone for many walks and spent a lot of time not talking, reading and being in the same room as someone (Anna, my fellow travler and trailer mate from New Zealand). There was one day of unstoppable fun in the middle when we got our muddy paws on a six pack of a lil' sumptin sumptin and stayed up til 11:30, or perhaps later (like 2 am). For the first week, I got up earlier than A and walked to the same clearing down the road, did some stretches for my body, sat down and wrote about what it felt like for that same body to be in that space, and stayed there until something creeped me out- as much as I love nature, these old, soggy forests are fucking expansive and mysterious, sometimes resulting in the willies.

Without further ado, poem from day one:

March 7th

Let's Break This Down:

the early walk was a good idea

first thing, forced to breathe

physical and mental body

surging with tannen thoughts

racecars as neurons as racecars

just like palindromes,

sort of.

but that's inside - outside

I've never heard this quiet

composed of raging whispers

or rather

the sound of motion before the push

coming out at bright angles

and lingering on faces, rocks and I.

only to find a tick filling up on me,

finding the source of coppered blood

prefered but rejected

cuz I can't retain all the memories

I've made up.

rust settling in bends, rising

I see a dough worth wading thru

a suit and tie-

I tried growing around the seams,

vetch, other forest bottoms

and choked on dead bouquets.

but as far as hobbies go,

I like to hold death

and find it beautiful,

let it go.

hmmmmm....