Dissimilar

2011-06-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

The entire part of my body is aching and itching to with this massive collar chocking my strong neck
each hair has some sensation at the same time. scratching and and itchin in this drying dust
the trap is all set...the slaves are all new and several colors
believers in some ridiculous institution of help
needing some assistant and ready to let blood to
gorge others on their viscerated limbs
and sewn back up slightly
and wobbling around
translucent orange tears on dark blank faces
there is a fence around this stake stuck in the ground
as long as the cost of gasoline
and as tight as healthcare
as the path gets worn and weary
my eyes become duller
green seeping out...
sicken now with yellow pollen rotweed
i wait in my cage to die.

2010-05-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

May the 27th
Wishing yourself to be some other thing it is not
Its all with the knots and sharp barbed wires...
but thats the part the firey mess thump thump
i want to disconnect...and i want to dettach it...remove it out of my chest and bury it in the back yard...to be eaten by worms...and given back to something that could truly use it...

waste of flesh. waste of time...
waste of love.

there is no weed to be pulled, no painting to be revealed, no more damn words.

Glass

2009-10-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

I thought about a man I met in Santa Fe

He encouraged me to be strong and sturdy and I became that for a while

Was able to walk many miles up hill for hours and never want to smoke a cigarette.

We came to talk about family one day and I was hoping and thinking all of this,

all of this work was going to have its big payday.
I was finally what they wanted: Trimmed hair.

Strong belly. Clear mind.

Meeting the cohorts and gemmed ladies, and feminine men...we sat in a room...
Watching the picture show, bore through with holes, melted circular browning spaces.
I could start to feel that day the chiseled space he manualy dug into my side.

They are angry because all I have left to say happy is...

8 hours of of snowfall, picture windows, certain yogic positions. And the legacy of weaving.

I know the tonality of his voice, I remember the day, I opened up my purple box on that high shelf next to my tiny refrigerator that had dust on it: My cave lit with fluroescence, the heater broken before I ever owned a cell phone. The expense of long distance...AT&T.

On the other end of that phone line someone, he, telling me my months were wrong, my body was confused and my heart works right in some other universe.

Thats when I started buying fragile objects at thrift stores. Old glass tea cups, brown and blue. Plates, ceramic cups...trash really. SMASH, CRASH! I liked to hear the sound of it on the stone floors. -- When you break glass you can never be sure if you get all the pieces. Sometimes they end up lodged in your bare foot weeks or months later; some memory or knowledge of that phone call stuck into my skin, covering the ground I walked on..

5-5-08

2008-05-05T19:54:00.000-07:00

Rung after rung the bars slides under my hands, it pinches and grips tight as I face the top, pulling myself up
my minature sysiphian task
ending with hot oven metal scorching my thighs and calves.
my expression has not changed much since those days
there is no point to the hot iron burn and dirt stands under my nails
and the holes in my clothes, the paint stains in my hair.

stuff and numb with piss colored beverages, and quick filter light brand smokes
when i think like this
tonight every movement works it way down, the hair on my head soft clean
my hand reaches toward my neck, traces the minerals tied to it, and some image
floats inward...

deepest physical pain i know, strikes me repeatedly like bastard lightning.
i close my eyes and say aloud forget, forget.
the next sight: the funny colored image box, laughing tapes, and places i never visited.

untitled

2006-06-28T09:35:00.000-07:00

I showered last night, this morning
Soaked and wet, my skin reveals
hand prints and movements circular and wide
recalling these flashes that beam inside my internal picture show.

your eyes dilate wide right in front of me
slivers of blue around dark black infinite circles

my mouth reaches for salty tastes the lines and marks on your skin

Hearing your stories you remark as boring, and I dive inside each one: seeing you
walking at twelve on a dirt road, buzzing sounds of insects and tall grasses
you maybe smiling or just looking off in the distant making the long haul
easier for your mind

Words fall so short in time.
they are useless for what my eyes and hands could tell you.
as they have started tatooing
movements and rhythms...
eyes and mouths making the syllables more clear
you have authored in this poem.

2006-06-26T06:16:00.000-07:00

Out on the mesatop you can see for miles in everday direction
the descent of blue to light and gold the clouds painted out of some french masterpiece.
the rain soars down to the earth and the smell of sage fills me up like an icy cold glass of water from some stint wandering around looking at the twisted gnarled juniper trees.
i heard that they were 300 hundred years most of them
older than the railroad whistles that i heard shaking my bedroom windows.

Note on the bottom

2006-06-25T08:03:00.000-07:00

You are discovering all the truths too late.

Walking aimlessly in your self absorbed haze.

I am seeing the marks being made and the ways that I was not meant for certain oatmeal cookie diagrams.

Phone calls are meaningless and voice mails echo long distant paths unrelentlenting whispers.

I am marking a specific day to revel in my own spirit...pointing at the faces of those unlucky few that step through fate's door onto this porch.

The sheer wind cutting through my body, the effortless cascade of flesh into slumber. And the searchlights.

Note in the bottom says, "emancipated from the terror."

Fevers

2006-06-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

The slight side of my body aches and burns in the
sweat drenched sheets
my mind goes back and forth between
thoughts of the gym: the forever treadmill
thoughts of the blue eyed sycophant

i keep bending over and grabing my stomach
empty and pulsing from the shock of symptoms

my eyes shut and i begin an almost immediate dreamstate
where and what can i see?
the great monuements the tall steep cliffs
the red rocks and the double rainbows all surround me
comforting me in this state

i see you far away stranded on the apex of mountains.
you wave and notice the shine from the glint of your watch in the bright
desert soon.
i wish my arms were wrapped around seepinging inside you
my legs locked and twisted into yours as breathe reaches inside our mouths
our eyes are closed dreaming novels together.

my momentary fever ridden love poem.

never known

2006-06-11T22:23:00.000-07:00

right up the steep climb, deep and hard to reach
the slow trickling stream
the hard high rocks.
the placid marsh lake surrounded by cirque.
the place where it ballooned and swelled and burst a thousand times.

thickened molasses sung songs.
the vibrancy of voice
a slow pace and boyish demeanor.
secrets inside the thoughts.

masks, rows of clowns walking in circles.
the chariot ride toward the carnival shows.
the thud and crash of streetcars
and the sounds of pouring rain
under and through we dance

you have no questions for angels, just directions.
the absence startles the minks in their boarded cages.
its quiet though
so the suttle hiss and throb of the spider
never reach to our ears.

we have become blackened
gropin our ways in synetic circumstances.

Unimportant

2006-05-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

The generalities you say.
We all know that, we all experience that.
When he doesnt ask if you are ok, after you have cut your self and screamed out about it.

When every time you meet you quietly sit and listen to the myriad of stories and opinions they are allowed to hold.
When the gas pedal is always far to the front.
Its like you are unimportant and sometimes nonexistant
you could just be some voice mail device for the self absorbed.

Every story is interrupted.
Its like your job no longer exist, your essense your personality
ignored, unimportant.
Its quite humbling actually when you look forwad to buying the cigarettes so that the clerk at the gas station smiles and tells you to have nice day.
You genuinely wish it back though the message was soully her perfunctory act.
Its like finding love in candy wrapper jokes or unsettling fortune cookies.

When you realize its time to let go of people who cant see beyond their smoky mirror in front of their face..
They gigle and laugh and tell stories about them selves to the delighted mirror head.

I have started to grow a tree branch out of my head.
The mirrorfaces cant even see it...
Sometimes its covered in nest and debris.
they are still....neglecting seeing anything outside their round orbs.

Unimportant tree head.

2006-05-22T09:06:00.000-07:00

The future of the planet is in turmoil.
HAHAHA.
tell that to the medievel preacher...he would tell you it fills his pockets with money...

the fundamentlist...do you remember Jim Baker and the christian themed fun park?
God does not babysit us...and provided wet and wild rides...he doesnt forgive sins...or open up pearly gates...or send us to firey peril. Its malarky.

yeah. wasting energy and consuming is not good. "the more you consume the less you live."
the students havent quite yet learned that...though they are the worst at it. easily trained...god fearing hypocrites...that mimic in doll like fashion. their parents movements.

ridiculous.chant. Freedom forever except for everyone butbrown people.
I dont agree with you. see thats why there is no fence to sit on. RACISM is hatred.
and policies of it. SUCK.

If we let eighth graders rule the world...you would see the pretty, the powerful and the pseduosmart would reign.
knowledge would be doctrinated. and consumed. fabricated for manipulation and control.
and the slaves would eat moldy fruit and work together in small close quarters and given ripe fruit as reward for obedience.
sound familiar.

i was never met for the 9 to five life.
lover i am. politics. are different people hating and ignoring other people.
its sick. and they would rather take a big turd on a prestine old growth forest and turn it into a disney world..roller coaster...than leave it alone and let some place not be dominated or destroyed by humans.
infestations.

i dont want to eradicate such a curious creative beast. just most of its leaders and their dynasties of greed. teach responsibility. learn love. then they would have to listen to the REAL jesus.
how ridiculous you all look. love love love..and you say not to you. you were born wrong. you were the wrong country the wrong color the wrong religion.
now when did jesus say that? we dont know.
just because he forgives you doesnt mean you can mercilessly commit sins all over the place.

who cares really...

boring. boring. boring.
violin screetching.

Ani difranco screams. simon and garfunkel howl...at ginsberg...
alice walker protests...toni morrison laughs...and then we just sulk.
at our neo Warholian duplicities.

ugh.

anger ramble

2006-05-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

You simply could not pay enough attention to that singular detail could you?

I think you would pry it and pick and let it scab over and then begin your investigative process of foul habits.

It sickens me the way people get so self absorbed and fester and fight and bore holes into people who smile, and give and cook and assist.

I wish there was a version of the an underground group like PETA...that went around torturing abusive husband, boyfriends, and fathers. I know that sounds harsh...and Im the first one to turn the other cheek but I want to defend these people. I dont want them to walk around and hate themselves because other people hate them.

Im tired of that sickness. I lived with it long enough...and anyone close enough to me knows exactly what I am speaking of...One of my close friends tells me to act as though I am a prince and deserve the best treatment. Its hard when I find it difficult not to be humble to any other living thing. I often resort to those feelings of self loathing and depreciation because thats what I was told and how I was treated...and then I go on courting men in my life that have done the same. Same down casting tone, same sarcastic bitterness, same brutal blows.

Im not a cowboy when it comes to morality. I mess up, but I try really hard to put my desires behind others. I know that sounds like some stupid monk's line. Or at least ridiculous...because we are selfish but if we realize that helping others brings joy...then its a little bit more justified. Im not talking codependence here but real giving.

Anyway. maybe thats the revolution. every stuck up arrogant asshole would get a slap across their face. and told very sternly by Oprah that they suck. They truly suck as a human being and need to turn their lives around and pay attention to there friends, lovers, dogs, and children.
Stop worrying about their hair and their nails...and realize that the self obsessing wont attract more men but just annoy the fuck out of someone else.

Ill tell you Im pretty fucking pissed off right now. And Ill kick your dumb ass hide in what you deem as selfish, or you are working on your own shit right now...its no excuse for emotional irresponsibility..

Peace.

list things to do.

2006-05-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

TO DO:
Change Oil
GO shopping
Go to the gym , ok this is boring...ummm lets go for long term like in the next five-seven years:
Get into a good MFA program
learn more about Ceramics and buy a wheel and kiln
Buy a loom
Graduate from an MFA program
Climb a really high mountain.
Quit smoking
Fall in love again and again.
Return to Europe...summer in Italy..
Hmmm...buy a house and work on it.
Learn italian in italy...while im taking classes on ceramics and traveling and immersing myself in culture....(any amazing cultural center can be replaced with Italy)
Hmmm. keep visiting New York...
Retreat...for three months in Nova Scotia...
Travel to Asia for a trip...cambodia, japan, thailand, china...mongolia...pick one and do it.
or australia...for a long time...maybe i should study there.
Buy a small place or land in NewMexico for future visits and maybe retirement or good investment.
ok..well i wont accomplish all of it but it seems possible
but then again...in the past five years i finished two degrees, lived in the desert, cemented my knowledge of spanish, and traveled and study in spain, and england...
lived in Paraguay, tried the peace corps...
traveled to almost every state of the country..
in love twice...wait three times..now
and climbed several mountains.
ok wait maybe last seven years...thats a lucky number anyway..

hmmm i like my list...
i know this is the happy...grab life by the horns part of me..
but that part is what gets thing done.

i think i wont avoid
debt
disappointment
sadness
pain
doubt
regret
or any other emotion.
especially a broken heart. i love that one so much.

off i go...im planning a trip to idaho...
a class where i learn how to use photoshop..well
and of course..new mexico...
with a quick jaunt..to Arches..Moab...Utah...the stuff of good memories.

today i am happy. i will slurp vegetarian.
sweat in a sweathouse, and movie in a movie house.

its friday. the day i have been waiting...
im happy because i got a bigger room to teach in next year.
they do listen.

Regardless of what happens...dont ever stop trying.
I didnt visit italy...and i havent found a boyfriend...
i still havent sky dived, visited africa
or bungee jumped, and i cant speak japanese.
but life is a long time
sometimes it seem short and you wake up and your only 37.

fear is just a nother little hill to walk up.

it took me 200 bowls to create one that wouldnt bust in a kiln.
i wanted to be patient...but i had to keep doing...to get there

peace out.
this one i have to read on the days i feel so dead.

Tests and absorbtion

2006-05-17T06:56:00.000-07:00

sI feel like Im taking tests all over the place.
I watch the students anxiety over six days of testing. Yes six days of testing.
The reason for this: to realize how bad the public schools are in South Carolina.
I will tell you this I doubt its much worse anywhere else. This is the bottom of the barrell.
I retain the same anxiety from the test and it manifests eout in loud barks. Those days when they are forced to be scholarly, eh hem, schooly again they resist like oil marks and watercolor. I mainly make vague notions about work and just ensure their safety those days. It is all I can do. There is about seventy five reasons why taking tests in the warm spring time is ludicrous and only one reason why they actually do it. Linear thinking, retention. The students will and most definitely forget the majority of what they learned because despite all the efforts to retain a more relevant curriculum all these test have basically create a very communist system. Memorize facts and regurgitate. Not relevant if you are headed toward a life of crime or a job landscaping or flipping burgers. Maybe if you want to go to a technical school and become a veterinary assistant. It might help you but I doubt it. I went to private school because I knew my parents could afford it and I was bored and unchallenged. I had one good teacher in public school the first ear of highschool, thats right ONE out of six. Pathetic. At least I believe there is a lot of successful teachers here and only a few that show videos and sit back and relax and let it all play out.
But you really arent interested in hearing my theories on contemporary education in America. They are bleak and sad. Despite all of that I have fun. I love my students and know them all. I also love art. Its perfect anywhere I go its not gonna be hard to find job satisfaction. Now, It doesnt mean Ill stay there for more than a school year.

I have also seemed to be testing myself: my limitations emotionally physically and mentally. You see I was born with a lobsided heart literally and figuiratively. And despite my efforts to maintain a equitable and fair demeanor towards others, I falter. I try to be just and kind daily. I apologize for anger outbursts, and befriend those people most difficult to befriend. I often times find myself surrounded by beautiful people but they are from the island of lost and forgotten toys. I suppose I might be one of them but I am not looking for an owner or the dream of becoming a dentist. But alas Ill admit I might be broken but not lost or forgotten quite the contrary. So how broken can I become and how much pain can I endure with this lobsided heart. I have reached capacity between all the people that demand my attention, affection and love, I have to make some changes. I have realized that my reserves are depleting rapidly and that if I dont cut my shit out soon Im gonna end up in the loony bin, and I am sure the toys there are truly lost and forgotten.

So off the sauce, in the gym and hit the road. Idaho. I think its one of my favorite words but its complete nonsense. A congress men lied to the US senate and told them it was a Shoshone word that meant gem of the mountains. A total fabrication but it stuck. They bought it and now it seems to mean remote, and beautiful and sometimes freighteningly conservative militias live here. Well not to me, its a song I sing to myself daily. "Pack my bags and I want to go...Idaho."
I know silly romantic rambling around the countryside hiking. I hope I meet some interesting folk on my journey this summer.

I see my absorbtion...as a way for avoiding test. Test of time and test of love intertwining. I think its to avoid the holes...and get out the anxiety that fills my soul. Quest unfullfilled for seasons and years maybe. But I know I have given out morelove in thrity years than most can in a lifetime. And before I start tearing at my flesh and loosing my teeth I have to answer all the questions and give it back to my instructor before the end of the school day. So here goes: The capital of Wyoming, hmmm Cheyenne? The highest peak in South Carolina, Sassafrass Mountain. Favorite apple, Gala. Okay you get the point. The absorbed alcoholic refuses to answer these simple questions, and walks away and points and laughs. he cries to and listens to the sad somber stories of others wallowing, unmovable and stretched before their graves. Its time to stop mourning and pretending Im dying for the time being. Ill die in your minds the sad indian brave who lost his son. Ill die as shadow overtakes your soul and you mute your own tartness. But soon she will set herself free, I will take a wild ride. And he may be on the island again the one I found him on...

Tests and absorbtion.
Pushed, delayed and untimed
Painted, delicate layers.

I have become absorbed most recently

my mind chants inward

2006-05-11T14:29:00.000-07:00

Review the last few movements,
adjust the length and raise it up to a level of perfection.
Now swallow vinegar every morning to clear the cords.
begin the dance again.

the swarming bees flit and fuss around the long garden walkway
the air is sinister with invisible demons to launch attacks deep down.

sword swallower, light this torch on fire and show me how its done.
take it slowly in so i can read the flesh marks behind your teeth.
clench it with your skull and let the blue flames become your breath outwards.

my marks are all easily washed downward. spiraling in silly limericks
of post marked poems lathered in varnish; potent carcinogens for its arrival.
expose, snort and release.

taking in the toxins of her stomach flu, of his addiction and her longing.
i walk back up the lofty loud staircase. begin the deluge and the ungrounding.
my raft is useless and my scuba gear has molded away in the attic.

all i have are these limbs that are burning into my sides and smacking myself in the face.
they are useless to me as my torso slides and my face flattens from the constant hammering.

my sheets are torn and covered sanguine.
the bed place is no place for lovers. but nothing more than an iron maiden. a chance for scraping flecks of flesh and devouring chunks of my skeleton.

i havent visited anyone yet. not, after this beating. the dullards have no clue as to the point that i have reached. im Zachary in the desert. and some bastard Judas' son.

the day brings the forest of clouds over the skyward areas I can view from the porch.
my mind chants inward: rain, rain, rain.

Naming introduction

2006-05-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

I absorbed an amazing story once on my many travels across the country traversing I-40 from Albuquerque to Charleston.
In one such trip after listening to A Barbara Kingslover novel that was amazing and beautiful, Prodigal Summer, I started with an obscure book of which I have never found again. This book was story of an aboriginal Australian child. I listened to the layering of spirituality, landscape and person and became transfixed by one idea in particular. The idea of choosing and selecting a name either on your own or for someone else.
And the name becomes revealed to us through our experiences with the world around us.

I have taken this concept and loosely been adapting the name Coal. The purpose of this is playful and also meaningful. (This is how I create meaning, wink.) The idea that people walk around and say ridiculous things like, she does not look like a Courtney. Or he is definitely not a Jim, is some kind of latent desire to create these architypes...or positions of life. by regarding a name with purpose and meaning instead of perhaps the one in which we are given we are selecting a new path, a new way of the world and others perceiving them.

I know how can new experiences and perceptions of the world be created by a simple slight adjustment of your name?
Well I know people who call me by my full given name. They do that because I used it completly to introduce myself to them; others have shortened it to a nickname and thus for reasons of endearment intimacy or control have changed their perceptions of who I am. You see we are universes unto ourselves but each one of us houses complete and totally separate universes of understanding about who and what each other are. By creating names and developing that name with people whom you are experiencing the world, we will come to start navigating through each other in ways thought impossible. Seeing and admiring reflections of stars through are blue and brown and green lights...
Or maybe just to make each other roll on the floor laughing...
The name will have refernces personal, historical...meanings that change and shift and even holds the possibilties to alter and change the name in the future.
Its almost like a new outfit, a new suit...you can try on and walk around in, seersucker or polka-dot.
Its also revealing to see yourself outside and all its complexities...Am I really a George?

Laugh...I do. I am gonna go burn some sage..and whisper my hidden name in the mirror...See if I pay attention...

My name is Coal . Now.
Tomorrow it may not be.

For the hidden

2006-05-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

I have this friend who at times because I found him to be more than who he thinks he is has left me completely to ponder whether or not he exists. Sometimes I actually think that I made him up in my brain. Like I am some kind of schizophrenic and the hours that I have spent in front of this damn computer writing poems about him and reading poems he writes and other words he write; it is a discinct possibility. My friends are all sick of his existence. They think if he does exist that he is crazy and that he has treated me unfairly and manipulatively. I say to them ok. Maybe. I do not know. I say he is afraid of me, as he is afraid of everyone else. Suppositions, observations or assumptions. Who really cares? We are talking about my emotions. I think if he does exist he should most likely be afraid of me. I have a terminal illness that while everyone seems to coat with cherry flavored cupcakes is a social stigma and psychological source of frustration. It is as one would call it my own freaking demon. I do not need anyone's advice at this point so keep your ten cents to your self. Im a fully functioning self aware, independent thinker who has needs just like any other dumb fuck on the planet. I on the other hand have complicated my life. I have chosen a path of self reflection, emotional responsibility, and love to be a major part of how I approach the world and make my way in it. Yeah with all that humility comes the psychological tortures. Its egomanical to believe that I am some kind of peaceful artist who wants to embue the healing powers of creativity and love onto others. So, in the spirit of Shiva...I also destroy it. I dream about suicide and torture. I revel in sadness and fall for people who in for all intesive purposes are some of the most selfish and self loathing people I encounter. I defy them with my persistence and punish myself with there inability to give anything. Anyway with all that being said. I have released that this paragraph of thought is just some selfish psychological masturbatory practice to understand and calm myself better. I have recently pretended to be an alcoholic for a few weeks. Im bored with that. It effected nothing : work, friends, or future. Alcohol has little power over me. Anyway. I think you are real: Whether in my mind or hidden in these words. And if its the parts of me that are hidden and then reflected through you. Then i pat myself on the back and say Im glad I learned to love myself so well.

the musings.

2006-05-03T16:50:00.000-07:00

reciting lines out of black authors' cookbooks for the soul
im walking in an out of combustible buildings
wanting to give and reach and think

but the purposes are all scattered and completely
fused into my purple case by the door.

the ease of running away
from my hauntings. my deadbeats, my own scissors.
the porches sway in the dusk..

the spanish mosses breezing filled with mites and aromas.
this place brings me closer to the surface of things
and farther from the journey.

im not a seeker. or a peacemaker.
i have chosen meaning maker. and its in those folding
chairs. i sit and snapshot and begin my operas.

wires

2006-04-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

the new cold air. from the spring time.
brings and breathes images and voices.forward

my favorite blue lights are still blinking
and moving around.
my hands are reaching for globs of paint and
wire mesh again.

his image is contorting...hair turns to electric wires
and his mouth is bolted...and sewn down.
words swirl around his brain..
and luscious fruit crown his temple.

i walk in and out and up and down the loud staircases.
taking in gulps of beer and aspirin.
my hair is soft and long..and today its curls are like
watermelon vines.

my hand is reaching out through all the
thick mud upward and toward the air.
i can feel ropes grasping and carving burns into my wrists.
the pull me up...and my lungs are filled with
sweet jasmine scents...

walking around with the homeless man.
talking about games and sharks
and players. i start to float upwards and away
as i can see his teeth are rotting from within...
and his stench marks the worn and ugly t-shirt.

my chest is filled with pounding of yesterdays
thoughts and desires.
and my face plasters a smile at tomorrow's impending delicacies.
thank you. and your wired construction.

snake

2006-04-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

the round robin games
stop short and fall into open and bleak crevices
stealth and shortness of breath combine
to create heady obtuse riddles.

patiently and ripe with intent
the fruit is set alone in dark corners
to rot and mold and stench
to eradicate its essense and transform

into spores. to flee and multiply
and invade asthmatic breathing tubes

i stop, turn and with a giant hose
destroy the filth.

Slight of voice

2006-04-21T16:27:00.000-07:00

The tone of pounding heavy footsteps in solid structures
i repeat these loops in my brain
changing the duration and intensity of each banging.
running men, children. walking, jumping.

it can become the rhthym in the background of songs
echoing, your head in the pillow onthe bed attached to the house
where the thumping began

or the way a heart would pound in a metal box.
tin man. crying out at his first beating.
in hollow empty spaces.

searching for other sounds.
cars movements on causeways.
like paper tearing slowly
wind movements in peaceful weather areas.

i know in albuquerque. negtive ions from pacific gails
twist and maneuver through cracks
down into you and sneak their voices
like a sliver lodged into your spine. preventing sleep
signaling the spring.

dusty...yellow. sagey spring.
when the wind subsided. the flat expanses between mountains filled
with yellows, lavendars, and reds...
brief rainbows quilting brown dingy green expanses.

between the sounds of thumping
and the pierces of ancient gales.
my body is trickling with kinetic
memories that lower me down
into the rich thick mud.

daily commute.

2006-04-18T14:46:00.000-07:00

shells of cars, we are the machines.
our brains are our bodies.
we reflect, shine , scratch, and smash our surfaces.
we work in unison and gather at stop lights
and parking lots.

red light, green light. games of letting go and stoping behind each other
ready to pulse forward
and passing in and out of lanes
blink, blink

shells of cars, we are the machines
fuel costing, dashes and white borders to stay in.
separate. lined up. moving like caravans of ants high above

stray and smash.
another dollar bill, another dead brain.
automated, airbagged and electrified our bodies
become flashy and sleek.

brains wired and remote controlled to
telephone poled street lines
and artificial pine forests constrain our movement
and freedom.

shells of cars, we are the machines.

What the fisherman reveals to me.

2006-04-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

the fisher man and his river walks.
he catches my ear and whispers to me
and tells me the mirror we are for each other.
i can see his eyes bright and liquid...i can see his hair and
the memory of long dreadlocks...

the poetry of our friendship: learning creativity and science
passing loves off and gathering beer cans
and roach clips..
wandering off into desert spaces marked with artwork.
and telling stories about rocks. and shared books..and singing punk rock.

he said he was in love with me over and over again.
it reminds me how friendships/loves start.
and how ever new person brings the passion forwards
i could never love anyone without such intenstiy...

its often a way that scares people my deep strong craving..
my rapturous stares and tight grips..
there only in metaphors there only in the thought of
never untying deeply woven knots.

peace, you ask. peace is in knowing my impulse
to crave you and feel you is beautiful.
peace, is to know im in the desired capacity to give and give.
peace, is to know I choose you. confident in my decision.

today the rain clouds are hovering but im not sure if they are going to pour themselves out. its in hiding from me.
and staying the distance.
that you tell me to get out.

I am drawing thoughts of your body and the marks that you make on it.
the harsh scars you burn into your mindscape and flesh.
they are reaches just to my left.
and without grasping. i look over.
and you are forgetting your parachute.

the feel of watching you plummet fast
brings racous vibrations into my body. from chin to groin...
my arms often go numb with the thought of you disappearing downward..
if you had just waited one second. i would have affixed the cable right.

i wake up from this dream of you falling.
cradle my telephone. as if it were your body..
ridiculous. my buttons push out into the universe.
the only truth about who you are to me.

and I wish you to believe me.

hangover from dusty days in the mountains

2006-04-15T23:10:00.000-07:00

Spin me around and around.
Conquer me. stake me. and now claim me.
I get to be a piece of it. Some juicy morsel you throw
at dogs starved out and snarling. Look at what you have achieved.
sent him backwards and when you knew it was not
anything natural to be.
language of rearranging things from potpourri to faerie dust has
created confusion, and when i look out on black velvet waves instead of the halls of dancing...Im stupiified.
I cant see anything else.
words not to be uttered.
You all really enjoy this, do you not? I think Jackwitch must have cursed me.
After he killed the child and mangled his body with broken breathe mint trays..he took out spell books...stole my words...and then injected me with some poison perfume. Colorado, i was running around. he knew I was pushing myself to find ways to learn and feel and seep my skin in dark brown earth. After he would pull out his blue purple maker. And ask me to watch..as my core just turned and turned. but you spin me. Wound me tightly at first..then like some yo.yo..that you cant quite get a grip on..Up and down..and back and twirl it up....and then spin it around and around..
there are questions about princes, and there are questions about witches.
my whole family thinks all this poison is left to get rid of me.
the women and my matchstick men. all work and sing and play together.
we do the storytelling and storytelling. and storytelling.
come join our circle of course.
lion.kingdon..
it only a temporary visa. and there might be work restrictions.
damn jobs are for those who have been citizen a long time.
and they cant be cut too much in wages. these are my armoured guards.
desiguised in halos of smoke. and wearing armour made from wreathes of vines grown in my forests. they are poets, artist, intellects, and gesters.
they ll protest in the favor to allow them to come and populate and work free.

round robin, stop blaming things for your weary game.
its inside and choices. you must learn why.
make them. stroke them. and placate them.
create a mirror face. play the grouper grouper game of sally dolly fashion
say hi to jason and douglas. and let them all know that soon they will be having a big fiesta celebration. this one we will have it western style...ill bring the salsa...and green chillis...you can remember the decorations..the red chilli peper lights...and those candles...i like

tomorrow morning ill wake up and argue with the interface.
think everytime its a game these arent games.
they are not riddles to solve. think it s a right decision?
but it smells like SPAM grinding in the machine hooked to my grandmothers table with onions and peppers...

my hangover from dusty days in mountains.

In the warming

2006-04-11T05:06:00.000-07:00

I bring this rock to you
Because in my brief time traversing earthen obstacles
I encountered this angled rock lying in my path, seemingly asking me to pickit up

I bring this rock to you becauseIt was strapped to my back
adding to my burden as I climb my way up

I bring this rock to you
Because its shape is not entirely symmetrical
And its surface seems dull and grity
But in the turning of the stone, reflecting back at me
Are a hundred gold and silver lights

I bring this rock to you
So you know on that day I choose to hold onto something
Heavy and layered, full of secrets to carry miles
back to my little silver truck

I bring this rock to you
Because my hand felt its surfaces, abrasive and hard
While my mind search the limits of its stratigraphy

I bring this rock to you
Because its origins are older than our bones and our great grandfather's bones,
So far our minds cannot grasp the moment of its inception.

I bring this rock to you
Because nothing else would describe
This history.

I bring this rock to you
To know it weighs me down to earth but anchors my soul

I press the cool stone to my face
It chills and relaxes me
In the warming of this season

As I think back of my brief ascent
And encountered this rock I bring to you.

stormy weather

2006-04-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

the pelts of hail boring down on my back
listening to them shoot and dart of vehicles and houses
the heavy cold rain showering me until
my clothes are drenched and sticking to my body

peal them off and throw them down on the ground
where the wind blast hollow my insides.
its not a dance today its some ritualistic baptism

broken glass and thrown tree limbs are scattered about
the brick houses and the ground seems to be sponges under
my bare feet.

i revel in the tempest's quick fury and blast
it releases my mind from memory and blocks
out the sun that lights my direction north toward your
home.

each one holds my face and traces the tears rolling down
they speak of things supernatural glowing through my eyes
their touch seems strange and strangling.
reciting to me who I am: a man walking out of paintings
and breaking out of stain glass cathedral windows.

im not supernatural. im not just my body and these burnt green fires
my chest is filled with vacant marks of where i took it out
and laid it next to my favorite blue lights.

my stone that i wanted to give you. placed in side this hollow
and broken frame. diamond shape and glittering. will remain.

these are my thoughts as i watch your dancing boots.
splash in circles and hidden under yellow umbrella fields.
stormy weather.

Survey

2006-04-06T19:35:00.000-07:00

I do not falter on my way up through the swaying trunks.
I see the point at which I am going to reach through the clearings and edges of switchbacks.
I have paused on this ascent. I have eaten rotten fruit, and at times my water seemed low in my bottle. I continue up.

I know for the most part he says he could not make it up these steep slopes, perhaps the uncertainty of his past footing would predispose him to believe that certain obstacles are not meant for that climb together.
But right there, pushing me along, pulling me on an invisible rope that is tied around his waist and feet planted deep into the earth to lever me upward. Never knowing how strong his bones make him.

Im going to find two mountains this coming week to climb their summits.
when im on top, it s no doubt ill be meeting him there.
look down at his clock, headphones in place.
and wonder about the next phrases to write...closing his eyes and seeing himself there for just a minute..
walking along ridges. and surveying out over valleys.

mapping out the geography.

lock it away.

2006-04-03T20:01:00.000-07:00

I am spending so much time roaming around
darting, and flying.
because i want to be touched. and ill do just about anything to be close to someone. So I have to keep moving, walking, talking. Listening, distracting myself. to avoid it.
Its pathetic. I dont know why I get like this, I can take care of myself.

Im sure i'll pretend and it will pass.

Its part of me. that people see, I think. Its on my forhead.

The pain of needing human touch. I think i paid for the massage because i needed it so badly. It didnt matter who it was. but someone touching you and feeling parts of you that never get felt by anyone but you. i think whores are cheaper than that massage.

Im gonna wake up tomorrow hopefully without any regrets. with this deep pain that cant be soothed.. because its been so long since hands have lingered.

and my Guardian will wake up...and walk outside...emptying out my jar..pouring out all of this..for women and children..when the truth is i need hardness..and comfort..and no amount of giving or listening or helping or waiting will ever quell that.

Dont tell me to get over it.
it haunts me..when i deny it. My body is the one thing I cant run away from.
I hate that it tells me what it needs and i cant ever feed it.
it wont shut up. its like you just want to tell it to die, there is no food for you.
accept it. and shut the hell up.

lock it in the cellar and pretend its not there. I close my eyes
and wish and wish and wish.

this one is for the rats

2006-04-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

Naive rats sniff out the streets for sustenance.
the roaches grow large lingering in these decaying wet walkways
my jean clad body streaming above the rats and roaches.
the dying decrepid vermin.

they grease cover themselves for their orgiastic movements,
glistening brown, black. ruddy filth.
sounds like rustleing stalks of grain. millions of them in unison.

i stomp, set traps. walk through darken infested alleyways.
no sandals adorn my feet on those nights. black boots with steel heals
heavy like firehydraunts.

the rats do not nibble, they stay clear away but i hear there squeaking voices.
i hear them. crying out their existence. Depressed for not finding ways to make life
less fowl.

Id rather be gliding down hills filled with snakes and field mice.
listening to the constant chatter of prairie dogs. As they pop and run..from apartment hole
to apartment hole. or
rest in the tall grass as I stealthfully
glare into the eyes of a resting buffalo.

instead of my thick boots. i ll walk barefoot. carrying a bow and arrow..and not much else.
ill be my own indian tribe, lover, best friend. as I am.
my name will change to parts of songs. and ill vanish and reappear
like spring winds off the pacific. howling and piercing.
calm and flickering.

the rats will find ways to my abodes.
they'll bore through my baseboards. the roaches will climb into the waterspickets.
infesting my tribe. forcing me to wear these black boots.
sleep in them.

their weight is painful and pulling. finding it harder and harder to fly...
my legs grow swollen from the constant lifting. above the ground
teaming with all of these

rats and roaches.

Return

2006-03-30T17:14:00.000-08:00

river. from a river.
borne of the cold mountain waters and brooks of vermont.
the rounded river rocks cradled me, and pushed my feet up from the bottom. my parents are rainstorms and snowclouds.

im not the same way twice.
i cannot be. you try to contain me and I wont stay. I'll evaporate up words or drain down. you cannot hold me.

you cannot harness me either. I move and thrust and do not make suitable as your friend.
I am sustaining. quenching. Ill cradle you in a raft as you float in my channels.

Stop my flow, and ill burst your dam. suck me dry and I'll kill off your crops. divert me, share me, and utilize me.

I flow through you. ill be your elixir. but ill have to return home.
I'll have to make my way out to the edge of the ocean. and be subducted in her faultlines. and soar upwards to the sky. back to where i'll break down hard stones to smooth river rock.
ill be working my way over edges.
being endless waterfalls.

I want the gravity to bring me right over the edge.
Pulls you down. Down. Air flying through me. Separating into a million bits. slamming, and misting, and splashing.
magnificent exit.

reappearing again. as flow in a canyon or valley.
forgeting for a moment that effortless exit downward.
you may find me the next time around.

followed you.

2006-03-29T14:13:00.000-08:00

a vampire scratched a map into my right cheekbone.
so i followed it.

found the solid ground in the middle of the swamp.
trees gnarled, and leafless, growing out of the bog.
i keep sinking into mud lakes and burrows.

but im hearing this strange song through the fog.
its about cactus. and strange sunsets.
i see blue lights flashing...warnings ahead of my trail
there is a eeire noise...

i am conscience. my eyes are burning, and covered and i can taste iron on my lips.
my forehead aches and pulses.
i feel metal tight and lodged in my wrists and back.
my legs are bound and my arms go numb from the pressure.

im wet, there is no warmth. there is dirt beneathe me. i can feel it on
my feet and ass. scents of sex. and bottles clinking.
my face is smacked with a large hand. i can feel its is thick and calloused.

dragged to a table..blindfolded still. im given intravenous solutions.
it feels comforting and hot, my blood rushes to my face, limbs and other extremeties. i lull myself with the sweet music i hear coming from the earthen walls, i presume. i see the blue lights again.

i look down and see delicate holes are carved out of my torso.
they are filled with blood, white mucus and urine that seems to be covering me all over. bones are revealed, my heart pulses heavy.
i dont writhe from this. i glare at the blue lights.

a mirror is held up to my face.
my head hits the wooden table and no pain but the pressure swells around my brain
i cant read the writting on my brow.
my eyes are still burning..and blood pulses out of the wounds.

i can see nails on the edge holding the mirror up.
they are grey. and sitting inside puffed up white flesh.

Read it. he demands.

beautiful. i respond.

planting cosmos.

2006-03-26T10:58:00.000-08:00

I looked down at your feet.
They were covered in the dead skin printed paisley make.
Up through your branches to blue.

I cant see much of anything without it revealing some secret
I spoke to trees this afternoon.
Before my own eyes their true parts:
colliding from leaves and moss, and sky.
A giant raised its arms up waving, inhaled deeply and breathe in my face.
I think I earned another ten years on the planet for that one.

It was strange because all of the plants started to reveal their spirits again. I notice how some were depressed and unhappy while others shout to the heavens.

The dogs examined my interest and asks questions about my skills and how i learned to understand them.

I believe this. I know this.
My skin feels this. My gut sings these lyrics.

Cradling inside you, i feel the meeting.
I feel the breathing, the beating...
i see your branches swaying...And you inhale...deeply
and breathe all over me.

the character of my fiction is...

2006-03-20T18:30:00.000-08:00

Future,... backwards a little bit,.... aim .......shoot.

No...not yesterday, lets try again: ...future,.... backwards,.... a little bit more...
aim...keep it right there........dont move...shoot.

damn...a few minutes lost...ok..
glad i could find myself back here again.

time to sleep. wake up . start all over.
the very edge of the page is where we live.
the flipping of it...the very movement of the eyes scanning to and fro.
and then the next one...
and flip, edge of page, scan again.

stop.

who was? and when did that?
back, edge of page, flipping, scan again.

end of chapter.

eyes close, review, drift and examine to and fro.
back. edge of page.

sleep, cowboy. wink.

re: languid.

2006-03-18T12:00:00.000-08:00

the city was humming today. I had a chance to walk through time. I was languid and all the people from ontario and massachusettess were eating garbage and creating traffic obstructions.
I was not phased one bit.
sublime feeling today.
I purchased a red shirt today, there were only a few left and it seemed to be calling to me with its communist imagery.

Sometimes like oceans people have tides.
you can feel the undertow and being escorted down into the movement and layers of salt and fish. Other times it seems like the ocean just laps against the shore calm, prestine and reflective. a slight hum from the waves crashing elegantly in a contrived and rhythmic dance.
meanwhile miles out beyond our knowing there are monsters with gapping rows of teeth, pursuit of fisheries, and oil spills. How far out are the calamities?

I sit and sift my feet in the sand, let my mind be there with her and listen to anything she might offer up for me to dream about...
I took a strange survey at the spa...aryuvedic...Im fire and water...
I dont think I needed a survey to tell me that...traversing between swamp and desert for four years somehow Im not surprised my body took notice.

Just to ramble today..let thoughts lap on my mind's shore.

recover

2006-03-14T19:13:00.000-08:00

the moon is traversing the sky now , It does it all the time, not every night because sometimes it has to go by day. The moon doesnt get to have a schedule that makes much sense it like 9 years or 18. and changes and fluctuations never are to be the same until that passses time again. Lots of memory and or remembering, that moon. It doesnt matter much now but when drought happened much more cyclically in the past we knew about it. Some people pay attention to her but they just think she is there to, um say, exist for their visual pleasure. But we found a purpose, we made her purpose. These days I notice her for a few minutes if I lift my head up. I want to yell at her and tell her to stop moving and its okay we dont need to know all that stuff about crops anymore. The big food people chop up the animals, and raise the grain so that cupcakes can be eaten in blue blazed caverns of suburbia. Im thinking about how I wanted to tell him this story about hwo the moon is important to the Anazasi. Like I am somebody's teacher and Im going around doing show and tell all the time. (I actually am, my favorite people are all under 18. Well lots of 'em.) I cant decide sometimes about these things. So anyway, she stopped a minute and told me that she would be back in the same spot again. And that she had done it a thousand times and she was pretty sure she saw me the last time around...and that she thought I might be interested in knowing who she was. Maybe she sent me to the desert? I dont know. Because then I was back in my car...and I was back from our brief talk sweaty, tired and ruthlessly listening to jarring music, wishing for a big couch to rest on.

fuel.

2006-03-09T19:43:00.000-08:00

For a time I need some respite.
my weary head is filled with stars that grow up from tree trunks...
and critters scattering in the night over tumbled down garbage cans
laughing herendously and pulling their hair out...

I still have mine though;I just, pause, look at how fast the time is moving and tell them to slow down.
they need their hair.
to protect their heads for a while..
and know they possess youth.

Im going to visit my favorite family in the entire world.
the writer and the scientist. and the girl with big black eyes.
small family, small house, small ghetto, small town.
I hope they adopt me.

sometimes birthrights are rights that dont have to be held up in lawcourts.
I have seen it done.
black eyes, bruises. gittery words and alcoholic shakes.
marital vows were all that started it and fertilized eggs.

but then there are these moments and pets and we feed on them.
till we are satiated like a band-aid soaked, ruddy, splotched.
there are scars, yes.
but what else are they then? marks for stories.

i need a respite, i said.
green, and spouts and flowers.
cascades. ill tromp to...
forests broken with winter ill pass under.

there will be compliments and talk.
giggles and laughter...
a special movement that does not splinter
between wide gaps of time.

i need this fuel.
to lessen my vulnerability.
streghthen my wit.
and soothe the beasts we share.

-i think that is how i write poetry.

re:bukowski. listen

2006-03-08T19:57:00.000-08:00

CErtain peole and the way they create and mix words. Margret Atwood, Alice Walker, Pablo Neruda, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Robert Frost, Milan Kundera, Sam Shephard, The beats..., AManda Warner, Luther Carter, and I have to write this poem by Charles Bukowski now from "what matters most is how wellyou walk through the fire."

Beast
My beast comes in the afternoon
he gnaws at my gut
he paws my head
he growls
spits out part of me

my beast comes in the afternoon
while other people are taking pictures
while other people are at picnics
my beast comes in the afternoon
across a dirty kitchen floor
leering at me

while othe people are employed at jobs,
that stop their thinking
my beast allows me to think
about him,
about graveyards and dementia and fear
and stale flowers and decay
and the stink of ruined thunder

my beast will not let me be
he comes to me in the afternoons
and gnaws and claws
and i tell him
as i double over, hands gripping my gut
jesus, how will I ever explain you to
them? they think I am a coward
but they are cowards because they refuse to
feel, their bravery is the bravery of
snails.

my beast is not interested in my unhappy
theory-he rips, chews, spits out
another piece of
me.

I walk out the door and he follows me
down the street.
we pass the lovely laughing schoolgirls
the bakery trucks
and the sun opens and closes like an oyster
swallowing my beast for a moment
as I cross at a green light
pretending that I have escaped,
pretending that I need a loaf of bread or
a newspaper,
pretending that the beast is gone forever
and that the torn parts of me are
still there
under a blue shirt and green pants
as all the faces become walls
and all the walls become impossible.

CHarles Bukowski

-sometimes you cant do anything but listen.

Reason out the window, today.

2006-03-06T20:18:00.000-08:00

Reason, like deductive reasonsing seems to be flown out the window.

i discard it mostly, like I am suppose to see people in their numbers
dialed down english, math, science and social studies skills
free lunch and "race" numbers.

funny thing is I talk to them like I want to know them.

How they come to create: when they complain and moan about the processes or definitions so verbose and overrought with millions of translations, they desire to subscribe to some method of knowing .
work, draw and create. Make all the mistakes and then start over.
ITs gottent to a point that I do not even have to ask anyone to start over.

My methods are listening and questioning. I try to not repeat at all. But I have diatribes I cant stop at times.

I hope they are okay. One class more dilligent then the rest, I feed them chocolate. I know, I know...but they love it. They know we are attached. There really is no other word for it than love.
I dont think it means its less than what its intended purpose, it means that though I may be in a swamp I am no longer submerged and murky. Or at least not during those forty-five minutes.

My worst efforts have turned out well. I know its to be on a path: to work and to pay attention.

Im listening more intently these days...to my students, to the hidden, the confused.

I also have something to float on... a raft constructed of strange discarded items from places I have been. But I am not so myopic to realize that at some point my fins may have to push through these limbs and once again I become aquatic. if for a while.

Today seemed like a day I would say: I had butterflies in the stomach, and images of emerald green cacti filled my mind and I hoped he would know it.

a brief extention....
I hear it all from pregnancy to false racial accusations.
They want to know my girlfriend, assumed.
I just smile. If they knew who she was they might falter at her anatomy.
SHe only exists in poems.

re: books, body and desertion

2006-03-04T22:02:00.000-08:00

Im not sure what the hell we need purposes for...

Existential angst, nihilistic blotter, hedonstic gluttony...
those are some containers for talking..
about the purpose.

When i think about sex, i think about where mouths havent gone to...
i think about facial hair, dry skin and biting the bottom lip...
pressing, searching, groping...learning new languages with hands...and tongues.
like it becomes a book in itself that's memory is kept between bodies.

the only thing we use that really tells about where and how and what we are is not some divine loud creature shouting to end wars, or live by certain rules or not to eat fish on fridays...
its simple and im sure every preacher would tell me i was a sinner...but its our own little temple... our own fucking roller coaster...made of flesh, hair , nails and bones..

i wish i was more brave, i would walk around naked more frequently.
skinny dip regularly, and have a lover who enjoyed laying on my back.

this is what happens when you pay attention to your body...
it craves attention..

your brain can even get shut off during ecstatic sequences, memory is erased from the cerebral part and zapped down your spine..

and remains here right here in my palm.

i think i may be writing for aliens....most of us here have bodies.
i just really enjoy being inside one...today.

some days i dont even know it exists. (-to rememeber-Written on the Body- a book that blurs ambiguity of sex and creates a love story vivid and visceral but the main character is never identified as male or female...

the last tatoo I had. i could have fallen for the artist. intimate creative, emotional and sweaty.
sounds like a good lover.

sometimes i think i should become one. forgo the ambitions of education and trying to help others...and become a tatoo sleaved creature and call myself monk.
move to portland...stay with the last guy who tatooed me...and live a beer hazed, tatooe filled existence. in anonymity and justice for all...

i keep thinking in images from the Pillow Book....

movies movies...

do you know what it is like

2006-03-04T00:13:00.001-08:00

colorado is gone now.
somehow the map rearranged itself and it cancelled itself out.
the funny thing is i went once to colorado and spent a cold march night
on a frozen ground with an avid colorado.

the day spent sledding down tawny slops in cold chapped ways.
not a care to my thump thump.

not a care now. not a care then.

i made a choice about letting go.
and whether it means going or beliveing something new Im clueless.

the mountains...will have to wait damnit.

2006-03-01T17:04:00.000-08:00

mountains are falling flat this weekend.
My kindness took away my solace this weekend.
for somebody's dog, cats and plants.
im gonna stick some canvases in my truck
and just slap it on wherever I am at..
messy or not..
i have to create.

im reading a book called Shame of America: Apartheid in America's Schools. Its pretty scary...I had a feeling but I wasnt aware of how bad its actually gotten. Yeah, just open your eyes, fool! Schools are becoming completely segregated again and no one thinks this might be a problem?
It makes me laugh...(I went to private school.)

Im not used to so much apathy.? (Did I write that lie?)
but thats what's there..heaped up with bayonets...like Ferlinghetti..saw..
on concrete highways with big metal boxs all cllunked up with lights and loud deafing music (there is the deaf thing again I wonder what that is)
probably my new iPOd obsession. glutton. consumer. Yes..and a liberal heart...the desert took away all that I wanted. and the swamp just keeps piling it on again. themes: wet and dry. i need more words for swamp...wet words. though my lips are chapped in the wind from the beach blasts....ill have to suck up some sunsets again. to keep me going for now. maybe the paint will reveal some secrets to me...maybe not...my head is full now waiting for inspiration.

the word.

2006-02-28T17:43:00.000-08:00

it was a photo. and it was stark naked.
the music was all bluegrass with some Brokeback thrown into the mix.
and Johnny Cash of course.
-no xo, one sentence written. little revealed.
dumbfounded, Colorado, dumbfounded.

he sets to work with his hands all day. building assembling, stroking.
his eyes light up each time i see him.
it makes me return each time.
he says selfish. very selfish.
am I going deaf, again?
not this time..i have my headphones on.
saved my life... thats the word.

I want to go to the mountains. please listen and then respond to my thoughts. paint images so that i can remember these days.
pieces, stuck to, layers...maps to understand where I am going. or where I stand right now in this swamp.

I have to let one light blink on and off when it needs to.
its comforting to know its there.
it pointed out the solid ground.

I need to think about this retreat. it might bring me a back the two weeks i have lost.
-Coal

sleep

2006-02-24T17:14:00.000-08:00

Incredibly, im still walking around here after a week that
pretty much blew me down.

I thought something great could have happened.
and then I lost it. Its great at 30.

I hate saying that I feel like Im cursed but its proven self evident.
Part of me cant get close. Part of me can stop showing how much I want to be closer.
I live my life mostly by the principle of giving. I try not to expect but hope alone...and give what I know I would want.

Its tough, maybe its piscean. Im not sure sometimes I wish that all I did was smoke cigarettes and create art. But then I would be pent up like I was for the past 9 months coming out only to buy cigarettes and food.
My friends only existed via long distance and everyone in town had no idea I had moved back. i was limboed...Or I limboed myself somewhere between here and Albuquerque.

Im not sure what these swampy rants are about, they seem to be just for me to look and reflect..so that I may remember this month or this time for the future. Do they have to be more than just a way to save paper. (Pillow Book).

Percisely, at the moment when they sell the trees to pay for the war. I start to blog...soully a coincidence.
Im tired of complaining about war and bush...love and all this shite.

Sleep.

perchance to dream.

the answer is...

2006-02-22T14:52:00.000-08:00

I think Im submerged....in the sub for a few days..they wont let me out.

do you exist?

2006-02-21T14:59:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder if I exist at all.
Or is this some cosmic dream someone else is having and created in a coma...or maybe some alien creature thought up my existence...or Im the video game trapped conscious of the future playing out some wicked historical reality game used to teach people about culture's past.

Banging inside the cage, picking the lock, ready to escape.

-Coal

"they missed fate's appointed rendezvous?"

2006-02-20T11:53:00.000-08:00

Pound, pound, pound.
recovered.
Birthday blasts.
thank you.
Survived another season of those lights of insanity.

Someone is on my mind..again. thank god its not colorado...
the swamp is easier to walk on... i might stay.

Time for a nap...when is it time to run away again?
-Coal

detinate 30

2006-02-19T11:22:00.000-08:00

Ok. Its nothing a day like any day.
But its the day we talk about suicide .
Its the week of suicide...or the month of it...
I figuired out a lot that my body was telling me...its the rumblings of shattering emotions...people i am listening to and talking with....
i should check out the bodies...mine is so fucking honest.
my sister. called. Screaming about jumping, the bridge. i heard traffic.
she wouldnt stop.
i wanted to call the police.
I vomited a lot.
a whole lot.

Sometimes i wish I could think like that.
Act like that.
Die like that.

But I already choose to live.
even though my body is dying...
even though I have to struggle with a whole lot more than most people. and not as much as everyone.

My work isnt finished.

Im listening to Soft Shoulder by Ani Difranco. It reminds me of someone troubled I met this week, someone else who has given me thoughts about these endings people choose for themselves and sometimes accomplish.
I feel their pain so deep in my body. I dont think anyone one of them would believe me if I told them that. Some how emotions seep into me. from other people.
But its just who I am...and how I am.

But in our categorical Americana. Im just a beautiful freak.
the "artist" word does not cut it today.

-Coal

Less than 24 hours.

2006-02-18T10:46:00.000-08:00

Review time.
I zapped my emotions this morning.
erased them...actually read an article on the nature of love.
discovered its all chemicals and reactions, or reminded that it is.

but i like the individual concept. and the idea about existential reminders. i think it stops at 28. or maybe i think its boring..i d rather learn tons of information...and meditate on concepts to feel and know and realize. i know nothing.
and each question answers leads to know nothing more.

learning new friends, exploring peoples faces.
i like to feel physiologocial responses...and act on them
whether its appropriate to kiss a beautiful woman or man..simply to know them more. i do it anyway.
its not sex that only our bodies are made for...or maybe it is but the dance of it all..the movements and strange rumblings beneath flesh i react to...
it might be familial.
my sister heals people all day with her hands.
its not strange im drawn to touch.

im going to go be consumer, american today.
buy things.
and read things.

tonite i will eat things and maybe listen and drink things.

then i will sleep things...and wake up
to a new number.

connect, disconnect.

2006-02-17T17:06:00.000-08:00

walkin barefoot in cold sand...toward edges. water flows and shines the million ripples reflecting gold. i stop my pace, sit next to a ravaged tree. some kind of apparition last night i must have been a ghost again haunting establishments, talking to wired ladies.

my body feels shifts coming up.. groin through my chest. as if being impalled by emotion. there is no sobbing just a release, some running thoughts and this piercing pain. a small crab comes out to clean and dance in front of its sandy home.

the Show.
the performance I was to notice: The strange straight girl eating me with her eyes said "look at his body language: he knows you are right here." I took a breathe...smiled at her...and listened back to conversations with 70s rock..in ruddy booths. im so far out: "look at their body language figuire out what they are saying." i think to myself. im like a tree so old..and so nonhuman...ive experienced all of this and so viscerally...but being a tree...rooted thick in the ground...feeling connected and fed. im so much of this world its hard to recognize me.
my eyes loom large and colored green, my body broad sewn tall & strong... i move deliberately...touch things with every thing I am. I do not resist the motions that send me toward knowing.

now im back again on the beach...the sun is setting and I walk away from the days end. the sound of the constant sea...its rhythm grounds me to earth. i feel the sand small and supporting me..beaten by a thousand years of ocean to fine grain...im exactly where i should be.
-Coal

ssssh they're on the train.

2006-02-17T10:04:00.000-08:00

this afternoon i cant seem to get bearrings inside my body...like im in a flesh hamsterball that turns and rotates and flips at every step. good metaphor for emotions...unable to grip or grasp any one particular one and hold it up to see it. barcade in-masculinized gesture and talk. I am receiving signals lately. women and men they are telling me stories and they are looking at me...im deciphering code and trying to translate into my neptunian green glowing world...sometimes it gets garbled in the sea and thrown on the shores of a fierce tide...but mostly it melts down...inside...my heart is racing right now. i cant tell if its from nicotine or from the thoughts in my head: my eyes are closed and we have become cats i start to feel something from where im touching I can feel it come up ... id like it to be that. id like to believe Im letting something inside something new so i can feel like im human again. not some cute face or body to poke and prod. when my body changes like this my soul starts to pour through my skin...my thoughts get garbled ...and im feeling every tree and rock..absorbing histories through skin...letting my body become a vehicle for the work it was meant here to do. translate, roll back...its ok...im ok ,you're ok. im ready to get on the road. im ready to elevate. im ready to listen with my hands... --Coal.

naturally appealing

2006-02-14T17:12:00.000-08:00

everyday I see a light house..in the diming blues on the east of a drive ready to glow with sunset fires my mind is about to wash clean as i step clunking out of my truck shaking my hair out...wishing i had not just smoked that last cigarette. im reeling from conversations, complaints, smiles, sugar, treadmills and the dull hum of a medium sized city i traverse daily. today there is one phrase I have come to embrace and hold and repeat to myself...silly as its wording, appropriate for today's celebratory nature: largeness of heart. i hold in my mind today examples, feelings and notions of this concept. sometimes i dont realize how natural it is to meditate. its another way of knowing like reading encyclopedic tombs of history and persons. i say the words again in my brain....largeness of heart.....images flicker comic book like, sculptural actions poems, and stories repeat and fade....feelings rise...im standing in my chaotic room students buzzing with paint, scissors and glue. I am answering: mixing un poco de amarillo y mas azul....and i look down. understood. smile nod. largeness of heart....

One week before i turn and see three decades

2006-02-12T14:04:00.000-08:00

One week before I turn and see three decades..
I hate that we package things in language and human ways like this
like Utah Phillips.."a journalistic convenience"...
I do want to be thirty because the alternative is rotting

I am thinking about what to teach my students this week in my public school with severe white conservative christian undertones...
drawing lessons...over and over...
i think im the only person that looks human and not
from some spaced out place...like backwoods, south cackelackey..
we complain about this place being backwards and it is.
the schools are horrible...no one who is different from the majority matters...and they all support the "war"
i shut my mouth most days..
slurp some coffee.
run on treadmills and lift weights..
but my rebellion is somewhat sinister.
art is the only tool i have in my arsenal to look at things differently.
i may not say my beliefs...but at least i dont dismiss them entirely...
its like being in a closet..
i cant tell you what it is like to be different and a liberal in a southern backwoods educational system.
its living fear.

i balk at. laugh at it..and pretend generally that it causes me little stress
i guess thats why i go to the gym
to work out what i cant...in a paiting or creative sentences.

i remember i used to be someone else.
like someone scared of places, differences and people.
the thing is i love my students...even if they would rather see me hung at gallows if they really heard the truth
of course some dont care...they like that i value their ideas opinions and lifestyles...
people condemn kids for creating their own culture...and i guess thats where i defend them...and give them a break...
im on tangent i hope these blogs get better.
so i walk toward thirty facing fears of prejudice, ostracism and faith in my abilities as an educator.
i dont think its half bad...for thirty.
Goals accomplished.:
speak a second language check
try to learn other languages check
live in s america check
live in europe check
live in the southwest check
get a masters degree check
study architecture in britain check.
boyfriend? ummm...
skydiving?
appalachian trail?
pacific rim?
mount everest?
well....still more to do....
(i cant believe i havent had a real boyfriend!)
I used to promise suicide if by such and such a date that i would have a boyfriend... even if it only lasted a few months...but some guy who would be proud to tell people that i was his...
sounds goofy and adoloscent but id like to know what it feels like to have someone be proud of their love for you...yeah yeah surrounded by love I am and happy for it...I never went through with those suicidal promises for a reason...but you know....im still happy...even without one.

ok you get it... ...i worked my ass off and accomplished a lot. so
ill stop for now ..."im just like everbody else..."
i got to go hit the books.
-Coal

drowning

2006-01-12T11:06:00.000-08:00

when you think you are drowning ask a friend.
he will assess the situation.
if there is water
if you are covered in it
and if you can breathe despite its existence
if you are ok
he will tell you
or she will
depending of course if your friend is male or female

The thoughts begin

2006-01-07T11:53:00.000-08:00

losing sights.
sleep south 80 miles or 100 north of my trench.
bright blue flashes my mind seeks.
the train visits this town every night. and the cars slowly creep up and stop.
smokers enjoy. radio knobs are adjusted
forced breaks.
my mind hates the pauses.thinking of the blue lights. at night in my mind.
time to take a drive...mesatop. glowing cities.
and invisible 10,000's.
fill my field of vision with ruddy streaks and beams of yellow...not the slow movement of blue lights.
every step.
further from the cast.
resisting the motion.