memo

I'm thankful for my legs that run
and the finger that freezes faster than the rest
and the scar on my left knee.

I have a working spine
which Atlases a neck
that cranes
upward
and eyes that read between lines
and register twinkling city lights,
vermilion watercolor clouds
and
dancing deep-river boulders

my fingers respond
and my resolve snaps-to
and my self-sensor
keeps me in check

this is just a reminder,
for knowing's sake.

hop it

I'd've thought you'd run
yet unsure, you stay and tease
a crack underfoot

surrealizzy

don't make things bigger
than you want them to be, hear?
nothing but the real.

***

I find my sentence
after the third or fourth word–
stern as True as bow.

***

make many mistakes
or let them find diamond blooms
tough but beautiful

***

my grandma knows things
that come across as magic.
how does she do that?

something ripe

I hear something ripe
why not spill your whole story
and I'll yarn you mine.

***

that door is un-shut
while you skip rocks on far ponds
young boys steal your pie


***

I pick my battles
and I chose to fight with you
until we melted

co-stride

run between the hills,
use these branches to steady
as your pace slows

step on autumn leaves
like your very feet depend
on frail foliage

breathe in chilled harsh airs
in snow taste high atmospheres
and know they are there

stretch out in the thaw
let the breeze play on your skin
find your non-limits

become powerful
and please watch others be so
we stride together

when it reins

hey, hold your horses
especially the strong one
the flea bitten grey

he's got a mind to
take off without thinking, why
he'll pull you away

meyer

use your pen truly
say what you say in few words
hit them with the truth

bigger

find a reason to
keep the world alive with me
don't look past your nose

find read nod, share

see my
decently sized notion
to jump to the side
of the thing that I know that
I don't?

find my eyes
wandering
wide
through the gossamer curtain
to a place that is
just barely
there?

if you'd seen me
catching
the feelings you've thrown me
more times than you've swung your arm

read that I
realize
that my page is different
from yours,
read: I'm aware

still

nod at my knowing
that parallel places
can be
if we'd fold ourselves in

adjust to the frame
of the picture I'm
hanging;
it's my vision
I'd prefer to share.

mind the rest

rag doll under clothes
old school TV, iced with dust
pile of things 'to do'

books row'd, growing row
rolls of paper, leaning heft
markers full of ink

blankets of items
me, no 'thing' inclination;
my mind is outside

careful, think beautiful

careful, they would say
don't get lost in your big thoughts;
mazes disappear

***

it's okay, I see
you're afraid. only think this:
nothing's as it is

***

consider the threat
of something so beautiful
like Vesuvius

one end's this way

Split mind says 'forget.'
Seems instead of remember
I'll stitch up my mind.

creative fiction

my feeling-feeling bones are tired
my head's not big enough for this
it should be so easy

but mystery, you insist
on being this month's theme

just wait a moment,
while we kiss

or maybe go away.

early slump.

smells like 'barbecue' outside
but in here, I'm fried
it's 8pm on a Tuesday

some blinks

Something behind these dozen ribs, unreachable seed at the crown of that head, too fully attuned and plain unaware, all at the crux of some blinks.

now know, Alamo

enjoy this current
run your fingers through its air
drift on, only know

***

feel disheveled when
you favor contrary winds?
instead try zephyrs

***

gave me a shot glass
that is faced in gold, and shaped
like the Alamo

string cheese

gosh, you're bad at this
it seems to be straightforward
and you complicate

take it for granted;
try that, and maybe you'll find
it works, for others.

how'd I get this pen?

she's right; you taught me
that I'm trade-able for more
than you'd wherewithal

***

spring'd from ways to talk
you're freed from your own shading
(sketches can be judged.)

***

how'd I get this pen?
black student hip hop club:
solid promotion

harder when it's transitive

you, sir - you right there
O, tell her she's beautiful!
and make it the truth

careful, or you're caught

careful, or you're caught
in the spin of your own thoughts
unfounded, unsure

pull'd before they've roots
these thoughts are chemical big
made of filler, fog

so that they rise quick
ethereally bound, strong
and pull you with them

stay your head and feet
if needed, step on street gum
'least it makes you laugh

***

far from fortunate
I see you as you want it
and you wish you did

seven seven

smoked salmon sushi
undecided summer day
on the bench out front

***

shake out your cocked head
and straighten your crooked grin
I'm not in the mood

***

she picked royal blue
but what she doesn't know is
we won, picking her

verbamicability

10 things that make me happy

smiling; walking; catching friends' eyes; trading backrubs with my mom; sitting on my rug'd floor to write; being in the vicinity of my grandma Lizzy; opening windows for breezes; considering appropriate word choice; music that wants dancing; poetic translations

idea from Kaylen (http://happynotions.blogspot.com - rockin' blog)

my brother turns twenty-two

a whole young hombre
passed the day playing guitar
and night? drinking wine

shrug velvet rain

shrug from my sweater
pull on dry velvet shorts and
listen to the rain

letters, comets, smiling

letter writing, lost.
soon our hands will not hold pens...
mailboxes empty.

bring 'forever' stamps!
(to stash under my mattress
for the renaissance)

***

some things last longer
you'll know them when they happen
like comet-tailed blinks

***

when I fell asleep
I still felt like I, smiling
spent the night on rocks

bring the boat around

bring the boat around
and we'll all take turns steering
barnacles aside

***

arms up, we should dance
why not make use of our legs
and functioning knees?

***

fall forward, we'll catch
there's a line behind you and
cool water below

thought jumping

less than one second
brings a bike toppling over
and a bitten cheek

***

drumming starts and slows
to the rhythm that it knows
one fortified wave

***

from some perspective
we've all been inside before,
we're all starting fresh

***

bring it from your ribs
where there's neverending heart
believe me, it flows

cookies are useless until you are hungry

written in my little red notebook, while on the road -


'ridiculous queue'
said the father to his son
hurrying along

*

sixty degree wedge
boosts a brown'd leg from the floor
in flash and buckles

*

caprese sandwich
e bibite fresce fill
prior-unknown voids

*

even with two seats
it's plain that the young couple
want to share just one

in their human uniforms

overwhelming undercurrent
contained on the train platform
still'd by inattentive standers
in their human uniforms

***

I've got bluing flames in stomach
always in there, like my heart
fan'd by banjos, drums and guitars
fed by breezes, kicks and starts

grown by words and talks of wonders
liven'd by good belly laughs
kept by unsaid understanding
fueled by blunders, made by gaffs

tended by true soul comrades
under currents and through storms
who know the flames they have themselves
contain'd inside their humanforms

300 portraits: same woman, same pose.

An exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Francis Alys' collection of portraits of Fabiola, a Catholic saint. Read about Fabiola: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/may/03/francis-alys-saint-fabiola

Hostel coffee in Paris is a treat

Thursday morning, post breakfast,

bangs self-trimmed: 'chic'?
uniform: a loose white shirt
washed hair, and a grin

*

Frenchboy leans on car
attempts for gold in his nose;
scratches his nethers...

*

Sainte Chapelle a une file,
a line near a hundred long -
I'll watch while I wait.

Here, you speak with your eyes.

This blog, completely in French

it lights from base to crown,

glowing like an electric stove burner.

what algorithm
makes le tour eiffel sparkle
five minutes each hour?

cars have to stop for walkers at zebra stripes

like the ones at Abbey Road.

Monday, commuting impression,

look right; mind the gap
aye, this city's not so small
when seen on leathers

*

Monday, after High Street K, Tate Modern, at Covent Garden

a pasty on stones
in the middle of a square
did not take four bites

*

Monday evening, speaking of 'fancies,'

make sure that you ask
the world for what you want, friend
it's likely to give

inter-tubing

Sunday. In London.
High ceilings in my hostel;
sun shines and I'm out.


More when it's gray or raining, and when I can upload saved words from my computer.

it's nice to be up higher sometimes

friday,

climb up Montmartre
caricaturists squared up
among striped awnings

tin tr-eiffel towers
small clones of Monet's cafe
blue- and red-dipped flags

le sacre coeur: fine
the 'tres jolie' view's outside,
and better at night

*

friday, best lunch yet,

salmon, spinach quiche
in the window of a shop
crust melts in your mouth

then later, hours on
moist, pungent, nutty, berry'd -
une tarte de pistache

*

friday, new hostel,

new friends by instance
an occasion for champagne
near the moulin rouge

'meuf' is street for 'femme'

I am told that French slang is formed by taking a normal French word apart at its hinges, and reversing its syllables.

***

Thursday: Roia and Sarah invited me to join them on a bike ride this morning. We all wanted to try Paris’s ‘free’ bike system (Velib). The girls suggested the Left Bank, so we jumped on the Metro and made it happen.

While we found a Velib station and figured out how to use the bulky gray bikes, we felt a drizzle; by the time we pedaled, wobbly-like, toward the busy street St. Germaine de Pres, we were dripping. Though the bikes were surprisingly stable and solid, we were unsure of our footing in the rain, and we were being shoved along narrow lanes by large buses. Still, we were biking! In Paris! In the rain!

The unreal romance of the whole thing kept us moving for 20 minutes, but our good sense finally stopped us and led us into a café, wet knees and all.

After downing chocolats et cafés au lait, we moved on by foot. Roia and Sarah are former English majors, and librarians-in-training. We visited a café where Sartre used to take aperitifs, and a bookstore where Hemingway hung with a posse. The ladies had a lead on a William Blake exhibit at Le Petit Palace, so I gleefully joined them in gazing at his picture-sized prints and tiny pages of poetry. I scribbled a few lines in my little red notebook:

‘The eternal body of man is the imagination. It manifests itself in his works of art…’

‘The eye sees more than the heart knows.’

The girls went back to the hostel to change, and I decided to find the Bon Marche, a ritzy department store, by bike. (Velib is in my Paris top-seven.)

Not so interested in the Bon's collection of Yves St. Laurent or Givenchy (although it was tres-fab), I really just wanted a snack from the Marche’s super-luxe Grande Epicerie. Picture: mounds of flour-dusted breads, stacks of tarts sitting on buttery crusts, cheeses in all forms of cream, chocolate squares, tea-tins lining shelves. I took pictures of the delectables at this place. (To come.) And I got yogurt de marron. Nutty, creamy, tasty. You wouldn't believe the yogurt selection in Paris!

(Aside, in sharp contrast: On the other side of this hostel common room, a guy just picked his nose rather conspicuously, and inefficiently. Just saying.)

I did find an art department in the basement of the Marche, and rifled through hanging decorative papers for at least 17 minutes. What came away with me: a couple of delightfully printed veli and an old-style map of Paris.

For a long time, I have esteemed maps.

it's not hard to find Metro ligne 2

My feet hurt as if each bare muscle and bone is balancing on its own misshapen pebble. When I tilt and flex my ankle, the stiff-rubber’d muscles in my shin yearn against each other. My heels hum high-pitched growls at me.

The hostel sounds fast, beat-ful electronica with repetitive wails and calls by a soulful – or angry – woman. She sounds like my frustrated arches.

*

Yesterday, I walked. I walked a giant circle from the hostel (north at Montmartre) west toward L’Arc de Triomphe. Along the way, I stopped at a marche and spent 10 minutes deciding on what cheese to buy for lunch. I decided on a tender, cream-yellow Aussee aux Moines, grabbed a couple of Boskoop Apples, and ate on a street-facing bench in front of a church. Very shortly, I was on my feet again. Eyes unyielding, feet skipped along. At the Arc, I turned southeast along the Champs, and walked on through La Jardine Tuilerie, right up to the pyramid of the Louvre.

Two years ago, a Chinaman snapped a photo of my mom and I in front of that pyramid. My hostelmates, pals Reia and Sarah from England, were probably inside. But I swerved right and visited le Musee d’Orsay, then kept walking along la rue St. Germain de Pres, busy Left Bank thoroughfare of shopping and cafes. How convenient! I could use a drink, and watching people is always on my agenda.

When the sky opened up and spilled, I was under the awning of Café Mondrian, so I sat down at one of the street-facing tables and asked for a menu. The waiter brought a café viennois, leveled by whipped cream, topped with cacao. I sat next to a French couple, the woman giggling and teasing the man about his chain-smoking. On the street, sheets of water slapped at the backs of cyclists, pooled in gutters and roared into drains. I watched Parisians line up like paper dolls under thin overhangs and construction covers. A portion of pedestrians had pulled out umbrellas and were still hustling along; the rest paused in their duties, keeping dry their duds.

Rain over, I walked on along St. Germain to l’Ile Saint Louis, a small island that mirrors the bigger one that Notre Dame dominates. I circled the island, photographing a woman sitting in a nook above her doorway, a red bicycle leaning against a yellow street sign, a pair of older boys in school uniforms sitting on a bench under a lone tree at the very end of the island.

I wandered over to the winding avenues of the right bank, in the South part of Le Marais. As the sun disappeared, I felt hunger, and a few corner turns later I found a falafel window, bright with French chatting and smiles. Jackpot. L’Il de Falafel, I realized: the best falafel in Paris, according to several guidebooks. Freshly fried, accompanied by forkfuls of splintered cucumbers and beets, drenched in tzatziki. Yep.

Finally, I shuffled on the Metro home, shins finally beginning to tire.

when it pours, people just stop and wait

--as if there is nowhere to be.

***
C'est une deluge, no?
Hard rain shoots up, falls back down
incandescent streets.

Cafe Mondrian
tables face'd to people watch
smoke weaves through the chairs.

rich brown leathers
neutrals pop in wools and silks
hair, shoes: intended.

***

in Paris

The City of Light is breathing this afternoon, like a slowed runner with a hot face. It's about 6:15pm, and a heavy breeze tempers the sun-heat that is still radiating from light stone buildings.

Up until about two hours ago, it was raining here. Gray and moppy. Heavy and sweaty. Teeming and lively.

Now, the clouds have backed off, but even on the side street near Montmartre where my hostel huddles, the scene continues to move. Across the floor-to-ceiling windows, with their minds on other things, walkers bounce, motorbikes whiz, cars zoom - then stop. Halt - start. Speed - screech. Veer off.

There are shutters and windows open above the street. A woman in a purple dress leans languidly over the black iron rodding of one of them, smoking a cigarette. She squints and scowls, and watches the traffic.

The hostel is playing a mix of dance-electronica. Earlier, while I scanned foreign price labels at a place called Darty to find a cheap power adaptor, the store played French rock-rap.

I've only been in Paris a few hours, and already I feel a pace among the livelies around here. It's not - so much - the individuals. Each person seems rythmic, intentional, even slow sometimes, like well-tuned instrumentation. But the group acts together, and the effect is a beat.

surely spitting she

surely, you're headed
where no others have yet gone
blindly, super strong


***

spitting nighttime mist
pattern'd my fiery sweater
as I pedal'd here


***

she takes precaution
to be anywhere but here
the days before I leave

it makes strangers chuckle together on the street

there's a great rumbling notion
that tumbles the ocean
like the waves - only stronger -
like what pushes those

it's inside my purpose
and it makes me nervous
- in a good way -
a way that I think I chose

it's this notion that brings me
to ponder the question
- what makes us all
so incredibly close -

why is it that in a pinch
we belong here
carried by currents
we follow by nose

and that infinite, inconspicuous
wind that still grows.

splendor and orange dirt

drink up, merry men
for, in days, we're on the march
again to the blue

we'll bring home riches
in all intangible forms
invisible wounds

our eyes will be spoil'd
before splendor and orange dirt,
our feet well ignored

drink it up now, men
slake the thirst, douse the rumbling
that has you unquiet

and once you've arrived
you'll be happy to know that
you won't again thirst

and lead me to it.

words spring from your mind
super-conscious, sub-ether
tied to what you know

what is it you say
without saying it at all?
tell me a story.

give me a fable
like you do everyday
and lead me to it.

What to write that says

'I'm really mad'?
I've given you stake
and you have what I had

you've an in on my insides--
what makes me concerned
that thing made by emotions
not by what I've learned

it's a tough one, to know
that your doings show
you're but a talker

you say against words
that you want to connect
perhaps you've just never learned
how to respect
others, or by turns,
yourself.

sometimes I think you have made it
but then
you stick yourself back
in the same place, again.

And you know - without getting!
that you've made up your mind
it's perplexing; you're so friend-ly
without being truly kind

there's something about you,
that I really do find
could be worth it
but you've yet to intend

so there's nothing to do on my end
but ride through
meld up some steel
and diminish the part you
play.

on my sort of walk

there's stride, and it's strong
a spur at my heel, so that, before long
I've passed where I headed
and must find it's not wrong
to add a new line to my vintage'd song

there's stride, and it's made
by a push to push on
via paths not yet laid
by a lust not yet gone

for a string of good lands and
treat after treat for my eyes and my hands

and a lust by my heart
to know what it deserves,
more than hills and terrain and bends upon curves

beyond where I headed before, as I walk,

I know what lay before it all,
what happened first,
that I was, I was.
and with that, I stride on
my foot to the road and my ear to a song.

the pigeons

It is twilight, and I pedal my bike toward the back of my apartment building, through the alley like I usually do. Mostly it's quiet back there, except for the occasional pigeon hooing. But as I slow my bike near the gate, an echoed voice makes me look up.

Framed by the open window on the second floor, there is a dark-haired woman. She is standing a few feet away from the window, and smiling at something. Her face is made brighter more by her smile than by the incandescence of the bulb-lit room she stands in. And the woman isn't only smiling, she's talking. And more than that, she seems excited. I cannot hear what she is saying, but I can hear her voice rise and fall. And I can see her animate her words with her arms. I cannot see who the woman is talking to, but I get the impression she has an audience of more than one.

But the nice part is, when I pull my eyes back from the dark-haired woman, I see flowers. Bunches and bunches of purple and blue flowers. It looks like the room is full of them, and they are tied and standing upright in clear vases.

I think I know what the bunches of flowers are for. I think I know why the dark-haired woman is smiling, and why her voice raises and lowers so much.

It really is a pleasant sight, seeing her framed that way by the flowers and the window.

it'll come

are you ever so awake
that things are bigger than the sky
and the sky is relatively dense,
made of more than blue,
and utterly far away

and there isn't anything to do but wait
until the sky comes to you
when it rains?

The apartment

I could use some speakers to play my computer music. Art first, then furniture. I can be at home in a place with warm walls. What makes warm walls? Yellow. Big, soft paintings. Faintly textured fabrics draped loosely, or fabrics with big patterns hung over bare spaces. Then give me a bed and leave me with a book.
But all the furniture you have won’t substitute for soft walls.
But all the furniture you have won’t substitute for soft walls.

Dependably

You!

Nope, there isn't more. It's just you.

more than spokes and frames

more than spokes and frames
it's turning wheels, folks with names
riding a brown road uphill
to catch the sun, to get our fill
it's a moving notion that won't stand still
a kinetic inspiration

once we've taken all the birds
it's less about friction and less about words
the brown still beneath, and Big Blue combing through
our heads kneaded gently by string-like winds

lose a day's worth of woes in the pull of our toes
when they seep from our knees and hamstrings
and we're free to think-
but not more than we'd bother-
of any kinetically insignificant thing.

so much do we give to the task at our hands
that the road loses form and we play with the lands

while we're moving in practice
we're caught in a still,
moving notion -
letting just our shadows grow until

we put foot to pedal,
and in a flash of the metal
it's all about this, this instead.
and something inside of us is way ahead
of even us, back on the road.

there's something I think of a well-wheeled trip
ahead of ourselves on the road.

soon you'll realize

soon you'll realize
all at once; one or other
you cannot do both

and when you do, Love
you'll know me as someone else
who has you figured

I'll tell you what I'm not, now

'I'll tell you what I'm not, now,'
said the knower to her known.
'I'm not a person who gives up--
not now, though I've been thrown.

I've plenty yet to learn, still'--
then the knower saw her known
and stepped back and admired
saying 'my, but you have grown!'

and her known was not a flaunter
didn't answer back but stood
always nearby, thereby waiting
as the very best known should

only now that the knower glimpsed
what her good known could provide,

her lips pursed --

she had only to make use of
the phenomenon implied.

I'd send you those songs

Overwhelming sting
like a rubberband to wrist
each time I wanna send you a song

when I'm moved by words
or a strumming of strings
it'd be easy to forget how long

I was stuck in a place
where I had no status; it was not my thing
(it wasn't, not at all, all along)

so I don't send you those songs

and because I want to be strong

because I want my ripples--

I shake my head fast,
not willing to think
that what I decided is wrong

Fine, I'll swim

Sometimes I'm rushed by a wave of desires
overwhelmed by the water
that I jumped into

It's a silly storm out here
that wants to consume me
what good will I be
among sunken ships?

Well if I must, then take me
Fine, I'll walk the plank
I'll jump right into the sea
and swim to the bank

of the shore with the pink sands
that I saw before
but whose beaches I've never had a fair chance to explore

The one that looks like it may have something for
me.

Yes, I'll walk the whole coast of that
far away land
and I'll run my fingers
through all that pink sand

O I do not know how long I'll be away
or if in the end I will decide to stay
or if, after that, I'll jump into the water

and be rushed by a wave of desires again.

facebookian about me

I want to learn.
I listen, and watch.
I am said to be very intentional.
Often, I'm not--
and I like to be pulled.

I have wanderlust, and I am always home.
I am without limits.
I want others to know that they are without limits.

Creativity inspires me.
Individuals inspire me.

I'd like to help connect people by writing.

I am thrilled by the ways of the world, and
Swept by the romantic.
I make things happen by knowing that they can be.

something apropos, I don't know

It all happens at once,

and shedding that unhealthy state
and being open has an edge,
and not knowing, while healthier, is not as easy--

giving up something great, that's not easy.
But giving up something grand, that's not fair.

And it burns, of course it does.

But wow does she command her world;
so what she really needs comes to her.
today, so soon, for instance, she brings home a young tree
and hears 'new' shouted from all angles
and 'yes' and her name! and votes of confidence--

yes, grand! it can be. She hears all this.
All like death and like new life

she may be, she can see
even more than before
when she already knew
it takes two, two at a time
and when one knows more than the other,
as she did,

when she admitted that she did,
it could not wait!

When she admitted that she knew
that she was looking for more
and here there wasn't more to have
when she knew this, she knew also
to move.

And then there.
There it is, because
All moves at once.
and she sees this, and knows it can be.

in less than a day

in less than a day
some things become magnified
feeling my ripples

and ouch.

self imposed ripples,
gosh. maybe better. but now,
a fiery crash

Cheers! to each other

Cheers! to each other
over shouts, under raised arms
in Tokyo lights blaze

while we're smiling here
and while we're all in a haze
it's all just a phase

cause something's missing
while the people are kissing
a truly true thing

more than us it's love-
ing that which we don't yet know
it's not all for show

and yet the lights blaze
and yet we're still in a haze
our subconscious plays

it plays and it plays.