Thursday, June 24, 2010

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.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

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.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

after work; or the lonely boys

+ mind
+ fix up
+ 6 hours
+ brand new
+ los angeles
+ harmonica
+ bobby mcgee
+ getting happy along the way

Saturday, June 19, 2010

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.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

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.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

it's good to keep lists

# venice & vermont
# sour punch straws
# rush t-shirt
# sour milk
# blue suitcase
# naomi wolf
# the wheel
# lit talk

Friday, June 4, 2010

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.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

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

Tuesday, June 1, 2010