bratislava

story circle

i feel more of a something

that is not just hope.

it is not just inspiration.

its a thing i can already

feel the dirt on my hands

and the sweat on my face

and a printed page in

front of me. of an actor

standing right beside me.

of a monica right behind me.

because she said things like,

"do it." and because

danielle looked at me with

that look she gets.

and ireland's poets don't

pay taxes. and i've got

more tablets to fill.

arrangements to be made.

making; made.

scantering

excerpt from a project for rachel j:

in france, people stared at me because they thought i was a gypsy. they thought i was going to rob them. i sat on the metro to myself and quietly read lonesome traveler. i couldn't hurt a fly if i wanted to. before i left humboldt county last summer, my new theater friends gave me a copy of edna st. vincent millay's collected poems, which i read on the greyhound from san francisco to L.A. despite the red eye bus trip getting pretty full mid-way through, i carefully guarded the seat next to mine so no one would sit in it. which i feel guilty about because people are always telling amazing stories about the people they meet on those kind of trips. i met a woman on a plane from boston to california. she gave me a hard time for reading hemingway. "that's heavy reading isn't it?" she said. "when i read, i don't wanna hafta think." she proceeded to tell me about her granddaughter and her new heirloom tomatoes. there's something magical that's happened to me the four or five times i've arrived in san francisco as a solo unit. i can't stop writing. there seems to be nothing better for my writer's block than to scanter into my favorite city without a friend in the world.

sah

after work; or the lonely boys

+ mind

+ fix up

+ 6 hours

+ brand new

+ los angeles

+ harmonica

+ bobby mcgee

+ getting happy along the way

crocheted blankets

my golden tipped hair and things

like evann marie and the victorian.

emails and snail mails and stamps

and fathers, thank you.

small circles of people chatting,

every night, after work.

trading porches with couches

and deep, hollow ashtrays.

lying on my back in my peaceful

room, not wanting to pack

everything up.

missing people and the old

stomping grounds.

things are changing.

wearing my boyfriend's

clothes and being comfortable and

not reading magazines.

quilts and crocheted blankets i

think about something i want to

create for erin. my erin is

getting married. melanie

makes things like homemade

croutons and sews with a thimble

says she never wants to have

kids. we think about tattoos

and meaningful things to

say on your arm.

change is coming but i'm just

a little girl still. i want big things,

i want so many things.

i'm ready, i'm not ready.

jamie

collecting bracelets,

and people charms,

and metaphorical

locks of hair.

gathering scripts,

and brainstorm lists.

keeping free drink

tokens in my

wallet.

wondering how i

ever got into this

circle of friends.

in this particular

circle of

conversation.

the way he smokes

his cigarette, his

beautiful face.

and what is correct,

for gender.

what is correct for

my gender.

i reach out my hand,

but pete doesn't see me.

he doesn't see his

girlfriend either.

her name is jamie.

and she smiled at me

like an older sister, said

"how do you spell it?"

like theater in the round

we receive, from all sides,

the one man show, the

story of our lives. and i

wonder how the black

crow flies. how we perceive

changes in time. and i

feel an invigoration that

my new collections i'm

keeping keep getting

bigger and deeper and

the meat of my brain is

thick and heavy with it all,

my collections. i'm

collecting bracelets,

for jamie.

it's good to keep lists

# venice & vermont

# sour punch straws

# rush t-shirt

# sour milk

# blue suitcase

# naomi wolf

# the wheel

# lit talk

important people

transportation

an excerpt from a project for rachel j:

when i flew from cameroon to france i was alone, and had caught malaria two days before. i had a series of tiny plastic bags with medicine in them that i was supposed to take at different times of the day, multiple times a day. i lost track. i got a front row to myself near the bathroom and never thought i'd ever want to be back in los angeles that bad. when i left switzerland it was a week early; in a fury of sadness and a silent declaration of freedom i left in the morning before anyone was up and took the bus back down the mountain as it snowed, got on a train to lyon and called my new friend jessica and asked if she could put me up for the week. from megan's in brussels, i met tobin in paris. and this in the days before well functioning and affordable international cell phones, arrangements were made via email and you stood in the train station and hoped to catch the eye of your long lost american friend, who, in this new european context, looked more like themselves than they ever did at home.

nineteen sixty one

on the road again

eden

heading in the direction of

salinas; soledad.

three miles down a dirt road.

with my car and my books

and not a friend in the world.

and wonder up at the gabilans.

how many miles to oregon's

border? brown grass hills

i used to hate as a child

wishing they were green

now i envy. golden fields

like a movie stars hair

promising good things.

like the golden pages of

an antique novel whose

salinas dirt lives in the

parchment, and bark

in the book cover. and oily

fingers throughout, and

someone saying, of course,

these people really lived.

sign

yesterday, i was driving back to my parents house after picking up my brother and his 7 month old son and i was explaining to him the purpose of my spontaneous trip up to see them when we saw a girl on a street corner dancing around with a large sign. when i glanced at her i realized that her sign was nothing but a large homemade poster with giant letters spelling, "IT WILL BE OK." my brother made fun of her until i told him, "well, i think she was doing that for me." he agreed.

i'll tell a story, 'bout an artist growing old

why didn't they tell me the day i was born?