This sweatshirt

This sweatshirt is old and it’s ratty beyond all repair. The fleece that used to line its supple interior has pilled off after countless late nights running around to this place and that, several instances in which a mess just happened and no towels were to be seen, and not to mention hundreds of cycles through the unforgiving washing machine. But in its faded glory, this sweatshirt has a story. Its tatters speak of adventures, its subdued color of long hours in sunlight. And to this day, it’s still worn—not for warmth, but for comfort and those bears in mind.

The Way

Let’s think about the world in this way and that. Let our hands be still and feet lay flat. It doesn’t matter at all which way we go, which way we throw, to whom our thoughts eventually flow. And flow they will, if only to fill that void of utterly substantial but lacking thrill. But perhaps the sound of silence can make a pitch—rich in tension and some unmentioned poignant light. For who is to say, really, what is the delight? The delight of day possibly may just be the time I get to say, “Hey, that is the way.”

A slow loris's favorite thing

A slow loris likes to grasp branches in its small furry hands. A slow loris enjoys clinging to things for long periods of time and peering at you through their big, big eyes. A slow loris is never in a rush and enjoys the laid-back pace of things. A slow loris also relishes the idea of an lizard for breakfast, a mussel for lunch, and a salad of grasshoppers for dinner. But above all, a slow loris enjoys being tickled on its tummy. It craves the sensation of twinkling fingers. A slow loris will do anything for a tickle.

Cloud toss

I jumped up and reached for the sky. I reached for a cloud, plucked a tuft right out. It was soft and cool, and as I tossed it to my friend, I felt both the pliant bounce and the friction inside it. The cloud landed in my friend’s hands, wisps splattering to the sides and quickly recoiling back into the mass. He did not know what to do with it. The cloud started getting restless and started to shake. All of a sudden it jumped right up there, up to the sky, and parked itself right below the midday sun.

Uncover Our Ears

The tree troll forked minutes down from the branches
To uncover our ears
To hear the shuffling chinking pieces of misty minds
Meeting in clouds
Discussing the tree troll for endless minutes.
Corners of conversations
Washed down with picnic cloths and imported iced tea
Found on plates in dusty houses
Forgotten in our minds
As the tree minutes troll across the sky.
Shards of cardigan flung aside
To hang like ripened tea bags from greasy fingers
And figure the slyest way
Under the ground
Squished in amongst the roots and forgotten
Even by the minute trolls in the parapet trees.

A great lesson

What’d you notice watching yourself?
My body language was a little…
Yes?
A little, dunno, closed?
What do you mean.
I had my hands in my pockets.
And why is this “closed”?
Because people can’t interact with me.
I agree, for the record, but let’s deconstruct this.
?
Why do pocketed hands indicate disinclination to conversational participation?
They show awkwardness?
And awkwardness shows…
That conversation will be difficult, unpleasant.
Yeah.
So?
I should take my hands out of my pockets?
Why?
So people feel like I’m comfortable?
So?
So they’ll be comfortable watching me?
Look what you just taught yourself!

A portrait of a closet

Seventeen wrinkled tshirts hang from rigid on hangers. They have been worn between six and four hundred, thirty-seven times, depending on their age, color combination, and fashion coefficient. They wait unexpectantly. They care naught what happens tomorrow, who gets worn, who gets washed, who gets torn, who gets tossed. The only person who cares in any way about this interaction is their owner, who is currently staring at them in confusion.


For he cannot choose one. And in this tiny, transient moment, his ability to successfully complete this task matters more than whether or not he inhales another breath tomorrow.

What have we caught here?

Mona, pray tell, what is this?
It’s a fish, Patrick.
I can see that, Mona. What am I supposed to do with it? What are we supposed to do with it?
Cook it, Patrick. I was hoping we could cook it.
I wish I could. I think.
Do you have no gas, Patrick? Must you visit my house?
Mona that sounds wonderful.
Friday then?
I cannot.
Does another day work better for you? I wish not to seem desperate.
No days work. Every day I collapse. Every day I fall. I haven’t yet hit the bottom.
Perhaps you must choose.

Why is he famous

Bob Dylan’s voice sounds like hail slamming against that long-rusty grate at the boat dock next to my friend Tim’s house in the industrial part of town. His song’s instrumentals sound like campfire riffs on forgotten keyboards tapped out with limited skill and less emotion, until the inevitable dawn breaks and sends the cowering “musicians” back to begging out of hats on chewing-gummed street corners, with frigid gusts punctuating their monotonous existence. But that is irrelevant. It is all irrelevant. His words, his poetry, his tale answers my desperate plea for mutual human experience, I know he has been here.

A Riddle, unsolvable

It made no sense. Her capacity for loving one man while falling face first for another was breathtaking. And yet it wasn’t. It was entirely human. The love of her life was absent, now present only in her memory. And those were only active when she chose to remember him. She loved him, and yet. When a message arrived, she hoped it was from another. When a thought emerged into her troubled mind, it was of another. She loved him, yet she couldn’t help imagining this other’s hot breath against her ear lobe, his foreign touch against her yearning skin.

Cancellation

No way I was going to pay two more dollars for another transfer. At the crowded bus stop, I crumpled the slip of paper in my hand and waited for the doors to open. When they did, two women clambered on immediately, pushing an old, scarved lady who was trying to get off back into the bus. I stood to the side and motioned her down, letting her take my hand as she descended delicately, painfully. Then I said hello to the bus driver as I deceived him and found a seat, not sure of how to feel about myself.

Written In The Marin Headlands

I balance myself
Poured in among the wavy limestone
Artificial concrete arteries
Disappearing into the trodden hills
No longer used and crumbling above the ocean

And where is my heart
Perched atop the weary fortresses
Crawling through these misty hills

In ages past
Men peered from here each bone-cold morning
And tried to distinguish the shape of the horizon

Hills
Am I to be spread over you like dust
Flapped over by crows
And still punctured by spray painted concrete
Is my heart being worn down
Is my heart being worn down
Tumbling down the cliffs
To land at my feet

On The Verge Of A Masterpiece

His fears had been looming up on the horizons for days now, and any moment he would have to look up. On Sunday he took a trip to the countryside and wandered for hours over sagebrush hills as the sky darkened and lightened, threatening rain time and again. For the first time in years, he thought deeply. Sometime during the lengthening afternoon, when he was sure drops were about to fall, he stumbled upon the realization of his oncoming death like a man first dipping his toes into a sea he’s never seen. The rain never fell, and he returned.

My Palms

A bird flew into my room today, and I tried to catch it. At first it hovered uncertainly, glancing this way and that as it tried to comprehend the world it found itself in. I was uncertain too, finally getting up from my desk to shuffle sideways towards it. Furtively, I shooed it towards the open door. When it saw me, it panicked and bolted in a flurry of wings and beaks at my head. I ducked and threw my hands up, trying to catch it in midair, but it careened off my palms, hit the ceiling, and ricocheted outside.

Evolution Of An Alleyway

Forgotten behind apartment buildings,
alleyways topple into one another.
Scraggled cats tiptoe from beneath
acid dripping dumpsters in furtive squadrons
until they are overtaken by dour mobrats.
Scum plants arise dripping from oil-skeined
puddles until they deceive passersby, feigning
the bark and whimpering leaves of sorry poplar trees.
Shortcutters shuffle more urgently than
they expected past tumbled milk crates
hiding layers of stains so thick they might be quicksand.
Men find their darkest, stirringest souls
crouching in stark shadows,
whispering to slow steam dragging out of manholes.
Leaning on one another,
the alleyways struggle onwards,
dragging the city behind them.

Predicament

Ants judged her as she clicked her heels along the dirt road. Squirrels looked at her. Everything stared at her. She didn’t belong! She understood, shit! A twenty-six year old West-LA actress/model/waitress/secretary/assorted walking down Rue de L’Essence, Quebec with a purse full of prozac and stained one dollar bills. Her right heel caught a pebble and before she could damn all that is holy her lips tasted earth and her Matin & Co tailored skirt shredded around her pert waist. It was ten miles to the nearest gas station. but that would only offer
physical salvation.

Slam The Laptop Shut

The door opened and he slammed his laptop shut. By the time he was fumbling for a book, he knew that she knew.
She just went into the kitchen and started banging pots and utensils around until finally he had to get up and go to her.
“I was paying the credit card bill and – “
She stopped and looked at him.
He said, “I’m sorry. For some reason, I just can’t resist when you leave for too long, it’s there and easy – “
Her eyes flickered past him and he trailed off; their young son had walked in.

The Barbecue

The evening wind flapped his purple and pink spotted tie against his torso. It wasn’t a warm night, nor cool; it was an indecisive child choosing between a Snickers and a lollipop. He locked his car with that embarrassingly feminine mee-meep and walked on. The gentle sound of cocktail chatter carried from the backyard, but he wasn’t soothed. His stomach gurgled in anticipation. These things always had great food. Still, he wasn’t sure of himself as he lifted the cold rusty latch and stepped into the gathering. GQ left him lately fashionable, though here he was beyond fashionably late.

How lovely is this place

Brother, some water please? I am ill and sick and unable to move. I hear the crisp hills just beyond and my limbs ache to climb their tumbled slopes. Move, brother. Move so that I may move through you. Tonight we are here. Tomorrow night, we may be here still. And the night after.

Brother, why do you cry when you look into my eyes? I am alive now. I will always be alive, and so will you. Together and forever we will love as we lie on this hill and look at that hill. As I die slowly, peacefully.

Moonsparks

Sometimes when the moon slips above the tree branches you can see little sparks jump out from it. This is because it’s actually grinding against the branches, which are made of firelava.

Mama, what’s firelava?

It’s a stone, my dear. A hard stone that’s hot to the touch even when you put it in snow. There used to be one in our village.

What happened to it?

That’s a long story Nikkum, and your eyes look sleepy.

I’m awake I promise!

Well alright. Just the start. Maybe you’ll dream the rest in the night and tell me how it ends.