40 years ago yesterday..

so we sailed!

on to the sun!

til we found!

the sea of green!

and we lived!

beneath the waves!

in our yellow!

SUBMARINE!

reminds me of you, erin.

pouncing; and! hilarity

qui est les personnes?

la suisse.

see? Hilarity!

je'n sais pas.

oui, les dents. comme les dessins..

squatting & HIGH TEA really?

and! hilarity

vraiment

"electrifying" she said.

nearing the end. spitfire.

grass

the grass is always greener on the other side

and this is the rhyme that locks me in time

and i spend each day desiring things

but once i obtain them

they're lost like my keys

they've slipped out my fingers

its an old summer fling

"i gotta get outta this town" i say and complain

but i'll say it again next year to the day

because no matter what happens i always get restless

no matter what love or adventures i'm hapless

no matter how great or fantastic the city

no matter what music and voices so pretty

i gotta keep moving, i'm a newborn gypsy

can't hold down a real job 

in anywhere clean

in anyplace fine

in anywhere esteemed

"you're rubbish and weird 

and spastic and mean"

i went to france and i met pierre

he smokes like a chimney 

he's hospitable and kind

he likes to make fun when my french isn't fine

he threw a party, there was an american punk

pierre is much funnier when its late and he's drunk

and he threatens to throw us out on the street

he's only kidding though, he's french but he's sweet

i'm an experience junkie i can't get enough

i want to taste everything 

from yummy and sweet

to bitter and tough

but right now i'm attempting to be thankful for this place

soak in every detail every breeze each open space

and fully envelope each moment that is ordinary

because soon, when i'm gone, this dull moment now,

will seem distant, delicious, extraordinary

on the back porch on a warm summer night

casually driving through the angel city's lights

hearing spanish from the neighbors the tvs on in back

fall is almost here i'm glad my friends are back

i'm always feeling intense at this young important age

as if we've got to figure everything out like some wise old sage

but these words they keep me going, they're dripping from the page

they're dripping from the sky from rainbows burnt with rage

they're flowing out just like the song the paper cup is in my hand

and in my hands i hold my tears the sky seems to understand

and the rain is falling down its not depressing at the start

its sparkling on the pavement and taps the windows of my heart

and hearts in shapes of pupils sees what's invisible to the eye

"l'essentiel es invisible pour les yeux" is the little prince's cry

i really truly believe that though i don't know what it means

i'll learn someday when i'm all grown up and touched a soul of the unseen

well i never feel quite satisfied its a flaw i really hate

its rare my soul is really fed no drug no jeans no date

i wake up each day there's not much i can do

and though i feel defeated and blue

the grass keeps growing

the trees keep stretching

the wind keeps blowing

your looks get more fetching

the sky gets pinker

the days get shorter

the clouds are drifter

someone tips me a quarter

and i keep going

one foot in front of the other.

-august 2007

"do you feel illuminated?" he said.

at first, nothing.  then a wave came over my head all gloopy feeling my whole body i leaned back on him and looked at her.  she grinned and leaned forward cupping both hands to my ear and she whispered “remember this for your book.”  i cried so many no tears always coming always coming.  “i’ll have to come back” he said.  i know they’re staring at me.  i was starting to feel better but then started this writing the words had to keep coming but the less that i breathe and try to feel better i’m writing these words also to feel better the words are gripping me consuming me i’m letting go its worse ever feeling his heartbeat his heartbeat on me,  “i like to focus on my heartbeat.”  i like to focus on my breathing. its creeping heaving and in beat with beating.  beating my pen.  my pen is beating me at this game i can’t write fast enough, careful enough.  there will surely be words lost and that scares me and yet i can’t stop, i always keep going.  

(i have been somewhere else.  and cannot bring everything back with me.  like monica says, being a writer is a lonely place to be and it was.  it was.)

********************************

the duality.  the two opposing sides.  one evil, enchanting me on forward through the beautiful shapes on the wall.  i saw a bird with wings back.  i saw a low strapped helmet.  red.  i saw your face. and i was coming into it.  so gorgeous.  mesmerizing.  and as i got closer i got closer to hell.  the demons jumped through the wall and grabbed at me, at my eyes, green things with fingernails and begging me to go ahead lose myself.  then i’d get wave of absolute normalcy, the light.  a promise that reality still exists but demons whispering the lies that psychedelia is worthier.  constantly fighting. giving in, slipping by degrees (which is a phrase I stole from stephen dunn), then fighting again.  

my throat hurts from puking.  i was so aware in the beginning.  an uninvited loss of control.  i couldn’t move my body.  my head weighed four hundred pounds.  tingly sensations feeling awful.  and then my knees disappeared.  is anybody in there?  i could feel them looking at me, laughing at me but i couldn’t do a thing.  intensely frightened, and no escape.  i wanted to scream, to cry, to express every thought, sensation, word-play but i was so intensely aware of how crazy it would sound and the laughs that would follow.

then it became incredibly important to remember what lauren had said so i yelled for someone to get my journal.  i had to write it down and then i couldn’t stop.  shaking.  the campfire was burning my leg.  my head got foggier.  my stomach queasier.  i couldn’t stop writing.  even now.  i can’t stop, the more i write, the more words stay trapped in my head.  i was miserable.  

“do you feel illuminated?” he said.  

“no” i said.  “its dark.”  

tattoo

they've always intrigued me.

and you can hardly disagree with some literary tattoos. 

jack kerouac

walt whitman

leonard cohen

e.e. cummings

the beatles

kurt vonnegut 

more here

oh, ghost

i met gary on the train to emeryville.  he must have been on speed but he said he was stoned, drunk, talking 300 miles a minute.  couldn’t finish a sentence telling me i’m gorgeous that's why his eyes are dilating having a smoke on the platform.  i’d wanted to read my book all the way to san francisco but i decided as annoying as he was, he must be kerouac’s ghost or reincarnated, oh dharma or something, looked like him, talked like him and i couldn’t get rid of him i’m too nice.  dirty jokes, how he’s traveled, been blessed, a young dancer and thespian given up for more money in sales, he keeps leaning forward getting in my personal space, or pleading with me or something.  won’t stop talking about san francisco, he’s gonna walk right into chinatown and eat all the dim sum he can, then to tenderloin for pakistani curry dinner.  all the sex he had last night on viagra some pills, he’s so glad he had sex last night he tells me.  he’s going sacramento - san francisco - san diego and i need another cigarette myself.  as he left he said “may your house be too small to hold all the people in it.”  amen i said and “i love life!” he shouts as he stepped on the platform in richmond.  goodbye gary.  

valentines from poland

i think you should do this.